41 15 willamette week, february 11, 2015

NEWS THE PDX ANTI-VAX MAP. WEED AN ADDICT SPEAKS. HEADOUT VALENTINE’S PICKS.

p. 9

P. 27

P. 31

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

wweek.com

VOL 41/15 02.11.2015

2

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

KUNG FU TOAST

FINDINGS

PAGE 27

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 41, ISSUE 15.

Future governor Kate Brown is a “scrappy outsider” who stables her Lipizzan in the rolling hills of Ridgefield, Wash. 7 If you want to send your kids to a school where they’re unlikely to get measles and that’s not run by the Catholic church or east of I-205, you have one solid option. 9 Police now believe the half-naked man found dead without a bicycle did not die by falling off a bicycle. 11

ON THE COVER:

Portland has a kettlebell gym that serves its own custom-brewed beer to members. 14 If you hate Kinfolk magazine, there is a Tumblr you’ll like. 15 Smoochknob opens for Sir Mixa-Lot at a venue across from a

strip club in a show sponsored by a weed store. On Valentine’s Day. 31 For $700, a bar on Hawthorne will close down to drive you to the coast for a seafood dinner. 45

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

The view from Revolution Hall.

Tarina Westlund Photography, courtesy of WLCR.io.

Portland police have arrested an alleged killer.

The previous suspect was a bicycle.

STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman EDITORIAL Managing Editor for News Brent Walth Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Aaron Mesh, Beth Slovic Copy Chief Rob Fernas Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, James Yu Stage & Screen Editor John Locanthi Web & Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Music Editor Matthew Singer Books Penelope Bass Dance Kaitie Todd

Visual Arts Richard Speer Editorial Interns Lucas Chemotti, Parker Hall, Anna Walters CONTRIBUTORS Nathan Carson, Rachel Graham Cody, Pete Cottell, Jordan Green, James Helmsworth, Jay Horton, AP Kryza, John Locanthi, Grace Stainback, Mark Stock PRODUCTION Production Manager Dylan Serkin Art Director Kathleen Marie Special Sections Art Director Kristina Morris Graphic Designers Mitch Lillie, Xel Moore Production Interns Kyle Key, Jennifer Plitzko

Our mission: Provide Portlanders with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a difference.

Willamette Week is published weekly by

Though Willamette Week is free, please take just one copy. Anyone removing papers in bulk from our distribution points will be prosecuted, as they say, to the full extent of the law.

Main line phone: (503) 243-2122 fax: (503) 243-1115

City of Roses Newspaper Company 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210.

Classifieds phone: (503) 223-1500 fax: (503) 223-0388

ADVERTISING Director of Advertising Scott Wagner Display Account Executives Maria Boyer, Michael Donhowe, Kevin Friedman, Bruce Greif, Rich Hunter, Kyle Owens, Matt Plambeck, Sharri Miller Regan Classifieds Account Executive Matt Plambeck Advertising Coordinator Iris Meyers Marketing & Events Manager Steph Barnhart Give!Guide Director Nick Johnson Special Assistant for Promotions and Give!Guide Sam Cusumano DISTRIBUTION Circulation Director Mark Kirchmeier

WWEEK.COM Digital Director Ben Kubany Web Production Brian Panganiban MUSICFESTNW Executive Director Matthew McLean Associate Director Matt Manza OPERATIONS Accounting Manager Chris Petryszak Credit & Collections Shawn Wolf Office Manager/Receptionist Sam Cusumano A/R Credit Assistant Ashley Grether Associate Publisher Jane Smith Publisher Richard H. Meeker

Willamette Week welcomes freelance submissions. Send material to either News Editor or Arts Editor. Manuscripts will be returned if you include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. To be considered for calendar listings, notice of events must be received in writing by noon Wednesday, two weeks before publication. Send to Calendar Editor. Photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

Questions concerning circulation or subscription inquiries should be directed to Mark Kirchmeier at Willamette Week.

Postmaster: Send all address changes to Willamette Week, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Subscription rates: One year $100, six months $50. Back issues $5 for walk-ins, $8 for mailed requests when available.

Willamette Week is mailed at third-class rates.

Association of Alternative Newsmedia.

This newspaper is published on recycled newsprint using soy-based ink.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

3

INBOX

FO

RW AR

Ds

there’s more to

tu

di

es

.c

om

than depression.

When symptoms persist, there may be more you can do.

If feelings such as depressed mood or lack of energy are keeping you from the things that matter to you, you may be eligible for this research study. It’s evaluating an investigational drug designed to work with antidepressants to see if it can help address unresolved symptoms of depression.

All eligible study participants will receive at no cost: Consultation with study doctor

Study drugs

Study-related care and visits

TO LEARN MORE: Oregon Center for Clinical Investigations, Inc. 503-276-6224 Whether or not you are currently taking an antidepressant, you may be eligible to participate.

KITZHABER’S TROUBLES

If he doesn’t resign, disgraced Gov. John Kitzhaber should retire to wherever Neil Goldschmidt resides [“Climate, Changed,” WW, Feb. 4, 2015].

I hope Oregon citizens can impeach him and get someone who will restore credibility to the office by making better ethical decisions—ones not driven by wanting to help a girlfriend leveraging his position and office for personal financial gain. —“Amazed” What’s really disappointing is that no one in the state is doing anything about this. No one is appointing a special investigator. The attorney general’s office is AWOL. We are just hoping the feds step in and find something.

All this does is lower people’s faith in government. Kitzhaber should never have run for re-election, yet no Democrat would step up to challenge him. We are a state of wimps. How this do-nothing man keeps getting re-elected is beyond me.

Oregon, it’s time to step up.

—“backcock123” Conspicuously absent from your timeline is the date WW endorsed Kitzhaber for his fourth term, despite knowing all the facts. I think that in itself is worthy of a story: Why did WW endorse a candidate who in all likelihood would be under criminal investigation sometime in his term?

I don’t expect you to ever, under any circumstances, endorse a Republican, but at the very least you should have abstained. —“mj”

OREGON + VIRGINIA = SCANDALS

At least in Virginia, the crooked funds came from private, for-profit businesses [“Yes, Virginia, There Is a Scandal,” WW, Feb. 4, 2015].

Here, some of the money Cylvia Hayes was paid was yours, mine and ours, and other funds were siphoned from nonprofit agencies.

All high-level politicians seem to be crooks of one form or another, but consider this, my liberal friends in Portland: Republican scum take the money from other wealthy dudes; your lefty wingnuts get their take from…you.

—“Tigardpops97223”

TESTING OF LEGAL POT

As a marijuana grower and a medible-maker, I have to agree that lab-testing methods, the results produced and the reporting need to be standardized [“Testing Flower Power,” WW, Feb. 4, 2015].

I have had products tested at multiple labs, with varying results and varying information available to me and my patients based on the reports the labs produce. This is not acceptable.

This issue also runs downhill quickly in the area of medibles, and is where we will definitely run into problems if not corrected soon.

There are many variables to the testing and labels that still need to be addressed.

—“MyVoiceToSpeak” LEttErs to thE Editor must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification.

Letters must be 250 or fewer words.

Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210.

Fax: (503) 243-1115. Email: mzusman@wweek.com.

Dentistry In The Pearl That’s Something To Smile About!

New Patient

$74 Exam and X-rays

New Patient

Dr. Viseh Sundberg

$49 Basic

Cleaning

(exam required)

Children’s

$59 Exam

& Cleaning

(new patients age 12 and under)

Professional

$99 Home

Whitening

(exam required)

(503) 546-9079 222 NW 10th Avenue www.sundbergdentistry.com 4

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and first girlfriend Cylvia hayes: embarrassing scandal, or most embarrassing scandal ever?

—Appalled How the mighty have fallen—just last August, a U.S. Department of Justice study lionized Oregon for having the fewest criminal convictions of public officials per capita in the nation. (At the time, we thought “fewest convictions” meant “everyone is honest” rather than “nobody’s getting caught.”)

Still, most embarrassing ever? Not even close.

That honor probably goes to former Sen. Bob Packwood: Wince-worthy tales of Packwood drunkenly cornering women become even more tawdry when one reflects on how hard it must have been to get accused of sexual harassment by Republicans in 1992. (Packwood stepped down in 1995, retiring to K Street to massage his wounds with $100 bills.)

We’ve already mentioned Portland’s racketeering-happy 1950s (Dr. Know, WW, Nov. 7, 2012), which saw Mayor Terry Schrunk brought

up on graft charges from his days as county sheriff. Jurors shrugged, and Schrunk continued as mayor for another 16 years. He was later honored with a lovely plaza.

But for sheer scale, nothing beats the Oregon land fraud scandal. After being granted 3 million acres in 1870 to build a line to California, the Oregon and California Railroad was directed to sell the adjoining land to settlers for a bargain of $2.50 an acre. This would spur development, tame the West, fulfill Manifest Destiny, etc.

Instead, the railroad hatched a scheme whereby various hobos were rounded up to impersonate settlers, buy the land, and transfer it to railroad cronies, who’d sell it to timber companies for $40 an acre. Soon, with help from corrupt officials, the hobo step could be skipped entirely.

The subsequent investigation led to more than 1,000 indictments and 35 trials, including that of longtime U.S. Sen. John H. Mitchell of Oregon. Mitchell was convicted and sentenced to six months but died while awaiting appeal. (Of a toothache, because, you know, 1905.)

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

FEB 13-14-15

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

5

426 SE GRAND AVE. PORTLAND, OR. 97214 NEXTADVENTURE.NET 503.233.0706

POLITICS: Kate Brown, Oregon’s governor in waiting.

HEALTH: Anti-vax mania, happening now at a school near you.

CRIME: Moving toward justice in the death of Cougar Burleigh.

COVER STORY: 27 reasons to love Portland—right now.

7 9 11 12

Sweet dealS for your Sweetheart! $44.99

$49.99

List Price $70.00 Our Price

$49.99

Kuhl Kaya Pant List Price $149.99 Our Price

prAna Maison

List Price $39.99 Our Price

$279.00 Niche Minx 2014 Eco friendly with Magna Traction

List Price $185.00 Our Price

$99.99

Electric Volcom EG2.5 Co-lab

FOOTWEAR

Our Price

Adidas Terrex Fast X

NEW! With Continental Rubber

cOmPare at: $499.99 Our Price

20% Off! Save Huge!

Elan Puzzle Package

Roxy Jib Package

Twin tip w/ Axial 120 binding

Twin tip ladies ski. Includes Look NX10 binding

List Price $440.00 Our Price

$299.99

Head Souphead Package

Rossignol TMX120

Easy entry, toolless adjustment

Our Price

List Price $55.00 Our Price

$33.99

Salomon Aura

Dragon DX

Custom air fit system

List Price $200.00 Our Price

$209.99

Aggressive freestyle boot.

$69.99

Head NX Flair Legacy

Asymmetric twin freestyle

$199.99

List Price $140.00 Our Price

$89.99

GNU Gateway 2014

List Price $550.00 Our Price

Kids twin tip.

Includes Tyrolia SX 7.5 binding

List Price $120.00 Our Price

$299.99

free.

Valentine’S Special!

cOmPare at: $399.99 Our Price

$199.99

100% UV protection

Our Price

Our Price

$84.99

$169.99

$29.99

Camp Route Gaiter

Atlas Elektra 923 Kit

One size fits all/ Red and Black

Includes trekking poles and bag

List Price $70.00 Our Price

$50.00

Hi-Tec Moreno

Awesome Hiker On Sale!!!!

MSR Lighting Flash 22 List Price $90.00 Our Price

$49.99

Merrell Rant Evo

cOmPare at $39.99 Our Price

Posiwire Quickpack

List Price $90.00 Our Price

$49.99

Merrell Rosella Lace List Price $385.00 Our Price

$19.99

Our Price

$175.00

List Price $9.99 Our Price

2 for $14.99

Next Adventure LED Headlamp

Pick one up for a friend!

2014 Wilderness Systems Pamlico 135T

Nothing says “I love you” more than a good paddling!

$1829.99 Wilderness Technology Aluminum Micro-Stool

Mad River Explorer Royalex Canoe

Take your sweetie for a classic paddle. Some of the last Royalex Boats in the nation!

OutDOOr scHOOL

START YOUR ADVENTURE! KAYAK TOURING 2.5 DAY COURSE MARCH 6-8TH PADDLE SPORTS CENTER (COLUMBIA POOL & SCAPPOOSE BAY PADDLING CENTER) $245/PERSON

This class takes you from being a land dwelling spectator to new paddler in the course of two full days and an evening at the pool. By the end, you will be equipped to go on your own paddle journey, and keep the learning process going. Start your next adventure today!

6

WHAT JOHN KITZHABER CAN STILL DO.

rent one, get one

Adventure Medical Kits Trail Hiker First Aid Kit

Princeton Tec Remix

$199.99

smaller frame fits helmets great.

$134.99

20% Off!

Includes Tents, Sleeping Bags, Backpacks and Duffels

$19.99

Made In the USA! Save $10!

cOmPare at: $499.99 Our Price

CLIMBING

List Price $400.00 Our Price

Italian wool blend

All 2014 Marmot Hardgoods All 2014 Timbuk2

List Price $30.00 Our Price

$29.99

Mountain Hardwear Scrambler ULT 30

1/2 price tune! thiS week only! any tune 1/2 price.

Kuhl Ana Hoody

Kuhl Ogden Jacket

prAna Prism Leggin

$59.99

Mountain Hardwear Summit Rocket 30

SNOWBOARDING

$44.99

List Price $109.99 Our Price

$99.99

Kuhl Rebel Runner

List Price $70.00 Our Price

$69.99

$119.99

ITEMS UNDER $20

$44.99

$44.99

Kuhl Lookout LS Shirt

List Price $120.00 Our Price

List Price $169.00 Our Price

SKIING

Kuhl Impulse LS Shirt List Price $75.00 Our Price

List Price $85.00 Our Price

JAMES REXROAD

List Price $80.00 Our Price

CAMPING

APPAREL

List Price $75.00 Our Price

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

Adventure Technology Exodus Fishstix Paddle (Blem)

This is an awesome bent shaft paddle at a phenomenal price! Features a snap button ferrule for a one piece feel! This is a perfect valentine’s gift for the angler in your life!

List Price $919.99 Our Price

$879.99

uPcOmiNG PcO eVeNts

THIRSTY THURSDAY: GRAND CANYON WINTER DESCENT PRESENTATION FEB 19TH AT 7:15PM PADDLE SPORTS CENTER FREE! Next Adventure Programs Coordinator Patrick and staffer Adam will host a talk and presentation slideshow of pictures from their winter descent in the grand canyon the Grand Canyon.

THIRSTY THURSDAY: NOVA SCOTIA SLIDE SHOW! FEB 26TH AT 7:15PM PADDLE SPORTS CENTER FREE! NA Programs Coordinator Michael will give a presentation on his

trip to the Bay of Fundy and talk about his experience teaching at the 2nd annual Bay of Fundy Kayak Symposium and paddling in exotic places.

As WW goes to press, John Kitzhaber remains the 37th governor of Oregon—barely. Kitzhaber’s increasingly tenuous grasp on power marks a stunning reversal for a physician who turned from medicine to public service and built a 36-year career defined by intelligence, independence and innovation. Today, the only four-term governor in state history is embroiled in a scandal of his own making that threatens to end his career.

On Feb. 9, Kitzhaber sent a letter to Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum asking for a review of the facts surrounding the influence-peddling and conflict-of-interest allegations swamping him and his fiancee, first lady Cylvia Hayes. (Disclosure: Rosenblum is married to WW publisher and co-owner Richard Meeker.) Kitzhaber promised his and Hayes’ complete cooperation. “No one wants these questions answered more than we do,” he said in the letter.

It was a terrible miscalculation: Kitzhaber asked the AG for a limited review of the facts. Rosenblum has instead launched a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, Hayes is insisting the Oregon Government Ethics Commission lacks jurisdiction to investigate her.

Kitzhaber’s gesture is not enough. If the governor is sincere about being open and honest with Oregonians—and salvaging what’s left of his reputation—he must take four simple steps.

• Make all documents public to everyone right away. If Kitzhaber has nothing to fear, then he could hit the send button today and release documents long sought by WW, The Oregonian and other news outlets. Kitzhaber and Hayes—by fighting the documents’ release—act as if they have much to hide. Releasing the documents means dropping the discredited idea Hayes was a simple volunteer in his office. It means acknowledging what’s already clear: Hayes operated as a public official while she pocketed $200,000-plus in private consulting fees linked to her government work.

• Compel everyone around this scandal to tell the truth. That means granting the AG full investigative powers, including the authority to put witnesses—including Hayes—under oath. The governor has that power, but he has refused to grant it. If he has nothing to fear, Kitzhaber should offer to be the first to testify.

• Be honest, finally, about how Hayes’ work benefited him financially. For four years, Kitzhaber has sworn on his annual state disclosure forms that Hayes contributes to his household income. During his Jan. 30 press conference—another doozy of a tactical blunder—Kitzhaber tried to disavow those statements. He needs to explain what role he played in helping Hayes get the contracts and make public the consulting deals and income Hayes has not yet disclosed.

• Take responsibility. The governor has blamed everyone else, especially the news media, for the trouble he is in.

Acknowledging his role in this fiasco runs counter to his nature.

It may also be his last chance to demonstrate leadership while he is still governor of this state.

NEWS

GOT A GOOD TIP? CALL 503.445.1542, OR EMAIL NEWSHOUND@WWEEK.COM

k e n t o n wa lt z

GOVERNOR IN WAITING IF A GROWING SCANDAL FORCES GOV. JOHN KITZHABER FROM OFFICE, SECRETARY OF STATE KATE BROWN WILL TAKE OVER.

By NIG E L JAQ UI SS

njaquiss@wweek.com

Kate Brown wants to be governor. She might get her wish tomorrow. Or the next day. Or at least very soon.

Brown, a Portland Democrat, is Oregon’s secretary of state, an elected post that oversees elections, audits and the office where businesses register.

The state constitution says the secretary of state automatically takes over Oregon’s highest office if for any reason the sitting governor leaves before his or her term ends. All of a sudden, it seems like that could happen.

Gov. John Kitzhaber is watching his political career implode in an influence-peddling scandal stemming from his actions and those of first lady Cylvia Hayes.

Hayes and Kitzhaber are now under criminal investigation by both the Oregon Department of Justice and the FBI, as well as a civil investigation by the Oregon Government Ethics Commission.

The Oregonian has demanded his resignation, a call that has sent ripples across the state. Kitzhaber has said he won’t quit. But he’s increasingly isolated in Salem. Last week, legislative leaders asked him not to testify on bills key to his political agenda.

This all puts Brown—elected as secretary of state in 2008 and re-elected in 2012—in a tricky position.

She needs to be ready to take over as the state’s chief executive at a moment’s notice, yet she cannot appear eager for Kitzhaber’s demise.

Brown declined to be interviewed for this story. “Gov. Kitzhaber has indicated that he has no plans to resign,” says Tony Green, Brown’s spokesman. “So Kate respectfully declines to discuss any speculative what-ifs.”

Yet Brown has been quietly seeking advice on what she should do and how she should handle this moment.

Brown, an equestrienne (she stables her Lipizzan, Tazo, in Ridgefield, Wash.) and former competitive diver, knows a thing or two about maintaining her balance in challenging situations. She climbed nearly to the pinnacle of Oregon Democratic politics through a combination of hard work, fundraising prowess and an ability to promote her party’s interests and her own at the same time.

“She’s got a great feel for people and a great sense of what Oregon needs as a leader,” says former Gov. Barbara Roberts. “She’s prepared and ready to step into the governorship on the first day.”

Critics worry that she’s too close to the public employee unions that have funded her climb. Kitzhaber—for all his current troubles—had a reputation for standing up to interest groups that backed him. The same can’t always be said of Brown.

Green says Brown has known since she first took office in 2009 that she needed to be ready to become governor in a pinch. “We have had a succession plan,” Green says.

“We regularly update the plan.”

SECRETARY OF STATE KATE BROWN

Brown is seen as liBeral, tenacious and closely tied to puBlic employee unions.

Preparation characterizes Brown’s political career.

Born in Spain, raised in Minnesota and educated as an undergraduate at the University of Colorado, Brown came to Portland for law school at Lewis & Clark College and never left.

She combined a legal practice specializing in family law and juvenile rights with a growing interest in politics.

In the 1991 legislative session, she lobbied in Salem for the Oregon Women’s Rights Coalition.

Alan Tresidder, a Salem lobbyist, says Brown was an effective advocate because she was bright, did her homework and worked both sides of the aisle effectively.

In 1991, Brown got her chance to jump directly into the Legislature when then-Rep. Judy Shiprack (now a Multnomah County commissioner) resigned to take a new job.

Brown won appointment to the seat—only to see Shiprack lose her job and decide she wanted her House seat back.

Shiprack seemed to have the campaign funding and endorsements to defeat Brown in the 1992 Democratic primary. “Kate didn’t have money, so all she did was walk the district and knock on doors,” Tresidder says. “She must have hit every door in that district three times.”

The race went to a recount. Brown won by seven votes.

That election set the early narrative for Brown’s

career: a scrappy outsider whose victory defined grassroots politics. Soon after entering the House, Brown also publicly identified herself as bisexual, a bold step in the early 1990s. But it was Brown’s dramatic win over Shiprack that defined her.

“That situation showed her tenacity,” says Maura Roche, a nonprofit consultant who for many years was the National Abortion Rights Action League’s Salem lobbyist.

Republicans owned the Oregon Legislature in the 1990s. Brown labored for two terms in the House minority before moving up to the Senate in 1996. There, Republicans outnumbered Democrats 2-to-1.

Brown sought to change that. She became her caucus’s top fundraiser, drawing on public employee unions and trial lawyers. By 2003, Democrats, thanks in large part to Brown’s work, had drawn even with Republicans 15-15, and Brown established herself as a rising star.

But it didn’t win her the top Senate leadership job at the time. With a divided chamber, senators from both parties compromised to elect Peter Courtney (D-Salem) to be Senate president. Brown won the position of caucus leader, which made her responsible for counting votes— and ensuring the passage of Democratic priorities.

As caucus leader, Brown showed an aggressive ambition that separated her from other senators who aspired to statewide office.

In 2003, Oregon’s economy was then mired in recession, and Gov. Ted Kulongoski pushed for deep cuts to the Public Employees Retirement System. Few Democrats wanted to vote for the bill because that meant crossing cont. on page 8 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

7

NEWS

politics

their biggest source of financial support: organized labor.

Despite fierce opposition from unions, Brown twisted arms to secure the votes necessary to cut PERS. Then, when fellow Democrats risked their careers to vote for the bill, Brown voted against it.

It was a maneuver that preserved her union ties but infuriated colleagues, especially when unions later successfully crushed Democrats who supported the measure.

“She totally undercut people,” says former Sen. Charlie Ringo (D-Beaverton).

While Democrats built an enduring majority in the past decade, Brown authored major ethics legislation, secured the state matching funding for TriMet’s new light-rail bridge and pushed for the ORESTAR campaign finance reporting system, considered one of the nation’s best at providing government transparency.

In 2008, Brown wanted to move up to statewide office.

She faced three Democratic Senate colleagues—Brad Avakian (D-Beaverton), Rick Metsger (D-Welches) and Vicki Walker (D-Eugene)—in the primary for the open secretary of state office.

With Brown’s union backing, it was no contest.

Brown’s new job is more bureaucratic and less political than lawmaking—the kind of position in which you generally get

Brown urged democrats to vote for Pers cuts—then voted “no” herself. “she totally undercut PeoPle,” one former lawmaker says. noticed only when things go wrong.

Things did go wrong in 2012, when Brown’s office botched the scheduling of the state labor commissioner’s race. Both Avakian, the incumbent, and his opponent, then-Sen. Bruce Starr (R-Hillsboro), had been told by Brown’s office they would face off in May. That would have given Starr a better chance to win—Avakian had just been battered in an unsuccessful race for Congress, and the small primary turnout would have favored the more conservative Starr.

But at the last minute, Brown claimed she had made a scheduling mistake and pushed the race to November—a move that helped Avakian, the eventual winner.

The foul-up could be attributed to partisanship or incompetence—either way, it hurt Brown. Nearly every newspaper in the state (including WW ) endorsed her 2012 opponent, Dr. Knute Buehler, a Bend Republican. Brown beat Buehler easily.

Once elected, she responded to criticism of her performance by getting rid of her elections director, chief of staff and spokesperson.

She got into trouble again in January, when it was revealed she had sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission endorsing the merger of cable giant Comcast and Time Warner. News website the Verge revealed that Brown’s 2014 letter had been cut and pasted from one written by a Comcast lobbyist, and that Comcast had given Brown $10,000 in campaign contributions since 2008.

Despite that controversy, Brown is poised for perhaps her biggest legislative victory: persuading lawmakers to approve the “motor voter” bill that would register Oregonians to vote when they get or renew a driver’s license.

Brown’s union allies love the bill because unregistered voters skew toward Democrats. Many Republicans don’t like the bill, in part because they are concerned about the DMV’s ability to verify identities. “There may be people who are allowed to vote who should not be able to vote,” says state Sen. Brian Boquist (R-Dallas).

Brown, whose term ends after next year, can’t seek reelection. She was already a leading candidate for governor in 2018, and has been meeting with supporters and slowly raising money, even before Kitzhaber’s troubles grew dire.

Now, she waits, wondering like the rest of Oregon whether Kitzhaber will survive.

8

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

HEALTH

NEWS

53% D.

I-5

49% E.

68% 1% K.

405

32% G.

37%

L.

I.

Q.

2%

2%

84

28%

C.

F.

M.

HIGHEST RATE OF VACCINATION EXEMPTIONS C. New Day Ananda Marga School 1825 SE Clinton St. Students enrolled: 106 Students with exemptions: 57

B. Cedarwood Waldorf School 3030 SW 2nd Ave. Students enrolled: 289 Students with exemptions: 161

D. Portland Village School 7654 N Delaware Ave. Students enrolled: 395 Students with exemptions: 209

E. Trillium Public Charter School 5420 N Interstate Ave. Students enrolled: 334 Students with exemptions: 165 F. Portland Montessori Collaborative 4817 SW 53rd Ave. Students enrolled: 84 Students with exemptions: 31

G. Opal Charter School 4015 SW Canyon Road Students enrolled: 88 Students with exemptions: 28 H. Southwest Charter School 0640 SW Bancroft St. Students enrolled: 192 Students with exemptions: 60

I. Escuela Viva 1111 SE Pine St. Students enrolled: 76 Students with exemptions: 22 J. Wild Lilac Child Development Community 3829 SE 74th Ave. Students enrolled: 57 Students with exemptions: 16

MEASLY NUMBERS ANTI-VACCINATION IDEAS FLOURISH AT PRIVATE AND CHARTER SCHOOLS.

BY AA R O N M E S H

amesh@wweek.com

Shining Star Waldorf School doesn’t look like a potential incubator for an outbreak of disease.

The small private school holds elementary and middle-school classes in a church basement in the tony Irvington neighborhood. It offers outdoor school each Thursday at park lands like Elk Rock Island and Kelley Point Park. Last month, Shining Star celebrated its annual “festival of the bees”— a fundraiser selling beeswax and honey.

Shining Star is also the Portland school with the highest rate of kids whose par-

2%

2%

S.

2%

ents have opted out of state vaccination requirements on philosophical or religious grounds. According to state records, that’s 57 of 84 Shining Star students.

Oregon has the highest rate of philosophical exemptions to vaccines in the country. WW’s review of state data from 2014 shows this refusal to vaccinate kids is highest in the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods. All 10 schools with the highest nonmedical exemptions are private or public charter schools—many with an alternative bent, like Waldorf or Montessori schools.

Shining Star administrators tried unsuccessfully to get parents who object to vaccinations to speak with WW. “In regard to vaccines, we remain neutral,” says school office manager Susie Martin. “We are not part of the decision process.”

P.

205

J.

H.

A. Shining Star Waldorf School 2120 NE Tillamook St. Students enrolled: 84 Students with exemptions: 57

N.

2%

T.

O.

54%

31% B.

R.

A.

29%

56%

1% 2%

2%

The schools with the highest rates of kids whose parents agree to have them vaccinated for diseases such as measles and mumps are mostly in East Portland.

LOWEST RATE OF VACCINATION EXEMPTIONS K. Albina Head Start 3417 NE 7th Ave. Students enrolled: 641 Students with exemptions: <10

M. Oliver P. Lent K-8 5105 SE 97th Ave. Students enrolled: 605 Students with exemptions: 10

L. Parkrose Middle School 11800 NE Shaver St. Students enrolled: 756 Students with exemptions: 11

N. Glenfair Elementary School 15300 NE Glisan St. Students enrolled: 510 Students with exemptions: <10

O. Central Catholic High School 2401 SE Stark St. Students enrolled: 869 Students with exemptions: 16 P. Davis Elementary School 19501 NE Davis St. Students enrolled: 480 Students with exemptions: <10

Q. All Saints School 601 NE Cesar E Chavez Blvd.

Students enrolled: 472 Students with exemptions: <10

S. H.B. Lee Middle School 1121 NE 172nd Ave. Students enrolled: 814 Students with exemptions: 17

R. Parkrose High School 12003 NE Shaver St. Students enrolled: 987 Students with exemptions: 20

T. Margaret Scott Elementary 14700 NE Sacramento St. Students enrolled: 477 Students with exemptions: 10

S O U R C E : O R E G O N H E A LT H A U T H O R I T Y

Parents say fears are overblown. “I’m not worried for my children today, coming to school,” says Rose Brooks, a former Oregon Health & Science University nurse whose three kids—all immunized—attend Shining Star. “I’m well aware of the public health implications of not vaccinating. But it feels a little oversimplified to say, ‘I know what’s best for you.’”

One state official who has struggled to convince parents they should vaccinate their children says unfounded fears about immunization—such as for measles, mumps and rubella—have created a potential public health problem.

“These parents are mostly affluent,” says Susan Wickstrom, an Oregon Health Authority spokeswoman who spent six months in 2012 traveling to schools with high exemption rates. “They’re white, well-educated people. Some of them think getting the disease is healthier than getting the vaccination.”

The state figures reflect the number of children whose parents have exercised the state exemption. Some of those children

may have had some vaccinations on a different schedule than the state requires.

An outbreak of measles that started at Disneyland last month has brought new scrutiny on the “anti-vax” movement: parents who choose not to immunize their children because of their personal beliefs. Physicians fear those unvaccinated kids could spark a comeback of fatal childhood diseases long thought to be nearly eradicated.

The schools with the highest rates of kids getting their shots? Many of them are in East Portland neighborhoods that have struggled with poverty.

State Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward ( D -Por tla nd/ Beaver ton) introduced legislation last week to end the choice to opt out. She says she’s willing to buck her wealthy constituents.

“They need to be challenged,” Steiner Hay ward tells WW. “I think people of more affluent lifestyles have been buffered from the effects of poor medical care.

I’m a firm supporter of a healthy diet and a natural lifestyle. But none of those things will protect you from the measles.”

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

9

WW_HZ10_2-00290_14EST_pdot.pdf

1

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

10

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

8/15/14

3:04 PM

NEWS

kyle key; inset: courtesy of rebecca random

CrImE

AFTER THE FALL: Cougar Burleigh, 38, of Olympia, Wash., died after suffering a head injury Oct. 12 on the west end of the Burnside Bridge (above). He was missing his pants, jacket, cellphone and wallet; police told family they assumed he was homeless and had fallen. The last known photo of Burleigh (inset) at Tilt restaurant.

Friends and family laugh when they note the bottle of hand sanitizer in front of him. “That’s so Cougar,” his stepmother says.

NO ACCIDENT PRESSURE FROM FAMILY AND FRIENDS SPURS POLICE TO MAKE AN ARREST IN THE DEATH OF COUGAR BURLEIGH.

By BETH SLOVIC

bslovic@wweek.com

In the wee hours of Sunday, Oct. 12, Cougar Burleigh was found seriously injured and only partly clothed at the west end of the Burnside Bridge.

As Burleigh lay dying at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland police concluded his injuries were the result of a fall. An accident—that was that.

Burleigh, who was visiting from Olympia, Wash., died two days later. And last week, police made an arrest in his death. Robert Lewis Browne, 42, of Southeast Portland, has been charged with second-degree manslaughter and assault.

Police probably wouldn’t have made the arrest if not for Burleigh’s family, which fought for attention and questioned the police’s dismissal of the assault as an accident.

Much about what happened to Burleigh, a 38-year-old Washington state employee, is unclear. Most records in the case haven’t been made public yet. Anthony Merrill, the detective who took over the investigation, has declined to be interviewed, as has Deputy District Attorney Amity Girt and Browne’s court-appointed attorney, Casey Kovacic. Browne pleaded not guilty Feb. 4.

Sgt. Pete Simpson, a police spokesman, says it makes no difference that police initially believed Burleigh died in an accident. There were no gaps in the investigation, he says.

But family and friends say they still feel burned that police initially treated Burleigh’s death with indifference and assumed he was homeless because he was found unconscious without his pants, jacket, wallet, ID or cellphone.

Tests later found Burleigh’s blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit.

Police also said it appeared Burleigh had fallen, perhaps off a bicycle. Burleigh’s friends and family said he didn’t have a bike.

Nancy Shadley, Burleigh’s stepmother, says she asked police to trace his cellphone, but they declined, saying they couldn’t do so if no crime had been committed.

“I think it’s a crime when somebody robs you,” says Shadley, who drives a school bus in Nevada. “I don’t know why they classified it as an accident. We knew it was a crime from day one.”

Police took up the case as a possible homicide after WW and other news media drew attention to the distress of Burlegh’s friends and family.

Burleigh had been staying with Cain and Rebecca Random in Southeast Portland. That Saturday, Burleigh and the Randoms went to see The Boxtrolls and ate dinner at Tilt. Cain Random and Burleigh then hit a few bars, including the Thirsty Lion Pub on Southwest 2nd Avenue.

Random and Burleigh got separated at about 2 am, when the outgoing Burleigh, who worked as a workers’ compensation claims processor, told Random he wanted to buy pizza for the homeless at Lonesome’s at Dante’s on West Burnside Street. Random’s cellphone battery died, and when he couldn’t find Burleigh, he expected Burleigh would meet him at home later as was their routine when Burleigh had visited before.

Police press releases say officers found Burleigh unconscious across the street from the Portland Rescue Mission at 3:27 am, when they responded to help paramedics.

After media drew attention to the case, police announced Nov. 4 that at least one witness had come forward and they now believed Burleigh had been involved in a “confrontation.” The Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office changed the cause of Burleigh’s death from inconclusive to homicide Nov. 7.

Rebecca Random says she’s grateful Portland police ultimately “did the right thing” by launching a criminal investigation. But that can’t take away the sense that friends and family were brushed off initially.

“In that moment when people were trying to grieve, we were also feeling insulted,” she says.

There are still many unanswered questions about Burleigh’s death.

When Cain Random recharged his phone after getting separated from Burleigh on Oct. 12, it had received a text message from Burleigh’s phone. It’s not clear whether Burleigh could have sent it. It’s time-stamped 4:31 am, after paramedics found Burleigh.

It reads, “Get out here.”

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

11

no.

Because Portland is to America what America is to the world…

They aren’t just coming to America anymore. They’re coming to Portland.

For the second year in a row, Oregon was the state that Americans moved to most in 2014, according to a moving-company study. Japanese fashion magazines publish Portland guidebooks, and Tokyo mall shoppers flock to a “Lifestyle of Portland” pop-up. We’re the only American city listed by swanky British Monocle magazine as “livable.” Even the French seem to like us, and they don’t like anybody: Paris has held multiple festivals devoted to keeping Portland weird.

Blame Portlandia if you like. Smirk at the kids who move here without any plans or prospects, and end up using their diplomas as placemats.

Portland has become just as much a utopian ideal as a city, a lifestyle panacea for the anomie of the Palo Alto software designer or ground12

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

down NYC bartender. It isn’t so much where the young come to retire, because they don’t really retire: We’re 50 percent more likely to start a business here than people elsewhere, and we’re chock-a-block with freelancers who can actually afford an apartment. Portland is instead where people come to live differently, in a world that seems new.

I grew up here. I watched New Bad Things at the X-Ray Cafe, and bought second-hand shirts from Thee O, amid the art-damaged, suiciderap Thunderdome of ’90s downtown. That love-in-the-ruins Portland now endures only in memory—and, somehow, also on Sandy and Foster.

But in its place, we are becoming an immigrant city, the same way America has always seen itself as an immigrant country, a place where the dreamy-eyed and deeply talented gather and mix. Portland has barely functional schools, but we’re still managing to import the young and educated from everywhere else.

Willamette Week spends a lot of column inches diagnosing what’s going wrong in this city. But there’s a lot to love. And we’d like to think that the other 26 Reasons to Love Portland we’ve assembled show why so many people come here to stay. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Ta r i n a W e s T l u n d P h oTo g r a P h y | W l C r . i o

no.

no.

Because the Eastside’s best view comes from the top of Portland’s newest music venue…

This week is the soft opening of Revolution Hall, the sprawling development at the site of the former Washington High School in Southeast Portland. Its features are many: an 850seat concert hall, two bars, a daytime cafe, multiple office spaces. The best asset, though, isn’t inside but on top. The 2,680-square-foot roof deck—currently only available for private events, but hopefully not for long—offers the best 360-degree view of the city, period.

MATTHEW SINGER.

Because you can drink at the zoo… …and the laundromat

…and the gentlemen’s clothier

…and the record store

…and the hybrid flower shop/furniture store

…and more movie theaters than not

…and the role-playing game store

…and the arcade

…and the kettlebell gym

…and the barber shop

…and the motorcycle shop

…and the cat adoption agency

…and a former high school and a former elementary school

…and the painting class …and the ceramics class …and two bike shops …and the indoor mountain-bike park …and two indoor soccer facilities …and the curling rink

…and four former churches …and at least one current church …and the playhouse (for free) …and at least nine food-cart pods …and the outdoor store

oregon Zoo; sPin laundry lounge; Turn, Turn Turn, MusiC MillenniuM, BeaCon sound; l i T e r a l ly e v e r y o T h e r M o v i e T h e aT e r i n To W n ; g r o u n d KonTrol; BishoPs, rooKs, y- C h r o M e , a n To n i o ’ s , T h e M o d e r n M a n , h a i r M , h e r i Ta g e ; P u r r i n g To n s C aT l o u n g e ; B oT T l e & B oT T e g a ; r e a dy Pa i n T F i r e ! ; v e l o C u lT, B i K e C o M M u T e r ; l u M B e r ya r d ; s o C C e r P l e x , rose CiTy FuTsal; evergreen Curling CluB; Threads CounT; C h r i s T o P h e r d av i d ; g u a r d i a n g a M e s ; Wa r r i o r r o o M ; s e e s e e MoTor CoFFee Co.; revoluTion h a l l , K e n n e dy s C h o o l ; C h a P e l P u B , M i s s i o n T h e aT e r , M i s s i s s i P P i sTudios, The old ChurCh; FirsT ChrisTian ChurCh’s Beer & hyMns n i g h T s ; P o r T l a n d P l ay h o u s e ; sCouT Beer garden (2), Fried egg i’M in love, The hoPPy CaMPer, s T. J o h n s B e e r P o r C h , C a P T u r e d

By PorChes, Pod Bar, The Blue rooM, arTigiano (oPening again in sPring); u.s. ouTdoor sTore K e g d ay s ; P l ay d aT e P d x . M aT T h e W KorFhage.

ConT. on page 14

…and the indoor playground Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

13

27 REASONS

CONT.

PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS/NBA PHOTOS

no.

T O P : T E R R Y D U B L I N S K I - M I LT O N , M I D D L E : W W S TA F F, B O T T O M : P O R T L A N D B U R E A U O F T R A N S P O R TAT I O N

Because bike-lane art is back, baby.

no.

Because Damian Lillard can save us from everything…

No scientific explanation exists for why Damian Lillard is better than any other human being at basketball when the game is on the line. But he is.

Advanced statisticians boggle at his numbers in the fi nal five minutes of contests where the Trail Blazers are within five points. Quantum theory provides no answers for #LillardTime—the moments when Dame repeats the salvation of the Blazers by hitting the same dagger from the same sliver of hardwood where he saved them before.

Here, then, is a highly unscientific explanation. Lillard gets better in the clutch because only then has he built up

no.

Because our doughnuts are big in Japan…

14

enough anger. It takes his body 48 minutes to refi ne the accumulated injustices and frustrations of the game into the jet fuel of precision-strike rage.

It’s no secret Lillard is energized by slights. We can all rattle off the litany: Oakland hardscrabble, Weber State obscurity, Olympic snub, All-Star snub. Each time he’s overlooked, his dunks grow more violent.

But less remarked upon is that this city loves him because his fury offers us catharsis. Lillard’s character is a release valve for the Irish-German repression and new-arrival timidity that keep Portland polite. He is not willing to settle for locally harvested mediocrity. He will destroy his critics. He will hit the game-winner. He will point to his imaginary watch. He will save us whether or not we believe in him.

There are times when I look at Damian Lillard and see nothing else in Portland worth liking. AARON MESH.

…just like Cheap Trick, Spinal Tap and Avril Lavigne.

Voodoo Doughnut has a long relationship with Japan, and not just because it’s popular with Nikonwielding tourists. Before the shop had even opened, founders Tres Shannon and Kenneth “Cat Daddy” Pogson were filmed by a Japanese television crew as they handed out doughnuts at a memorial for longtime Lakers announcer Chick Hearn. By 2011, they were on the phone to Japan almost weekly.

In June, that long-discussed Voodoo Doughnut store will open in Tokyo, bringing maple bacon bars and sidewalk lines to the land of the rising sun. Voodoo told Portland’s semidaily newspaper that it will open 19 more spots in Japan and Taiwan over the next three years. By comparison, the number of shops in the U.S. is a mere five, with another one expected

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

in June.

Meanwhile, bourgie noveltydoughnut chain Blue Star Donuts— think hibiscus and Cointreau, not Froot Loops and aspirin—is flirting like the French. In December, coowner Katie Poppe wrote WW that they were headed to Tokyo, too, inside a luxury department store. “I literally just signed the deal last night,” she wrote in an email. “Pretty effing cool, so excited to partner with a luxury brand and represent Portland abroad! :)” Poppe and partner Micah Camden have walked back that enthusiasm, both to us and to other media outlets. No official announcement has escaped, and through emissaries they’ve sworn nothing is set in stone.

But if the maple bacon can cross the pond, why not the fried-chicken ring?

MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

no.

Because we need support groups for moms who use formula…

Oregon has some of the highest breastfeeding rates in the nation. More than 90 percent of Oregon moms give it a go at least once, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 40 percent of 1-year-olds still milk it.

Walk into any Multnomah County library early in the day—say 10 am—and you’re likely to see a lot of naked knockers as the librarian reads I am a Bunny.

Flashing? In Portland, no one gives a tit.

Local children’s consignment shops peddle everything from used cloth diaper covers to baby carriers.

But try selling a nursing cover. Sometimes called an “udder cover” or, even more politely, a “hooter hider,” the cover is a cross between a bib and an apron, typically made from cutesy cotton prints (think cowboys or owls). It’s designed to let a nursing mother experience the pleasures of life with a burqa.

You won’t fi nd many Portland mothers using one, at least not after the well-meaning relative who gave it to her leaves town. Wendy Stein, co-owner of Bella Stella on Northeast Broadway, says her store generally doesn’t accept them because they don’t sell. “They just sit,” she says. “They don’t move.”

CONT.

27 REASONS

Sara Holmes, owner of Piccolina, with locations on Southeast Clinton Street and Woodstock Boulevard, says her shops sell about fi ve nursing covers a month. “Most of the time it’s because the nursing mother is traveling to another state,” she says.

Portland’s “lactivist” culture means moms can unsnap their bras comfortably just about anywhere. Bothered by this?

Beware of voicing that opinion, lest you invite a nurse-in.

There is a downside, of course, to Portland’s obsession with hyperlocal milk. Lots of moms can’t breastfeed, or choose not to for good reasons. Bottle feeders sometimes feel like bottom feeders here, forced to sneak into their cars to pop bottles in their kiddos’ mouths to avoid quizzical stares inside Cafe au Play. “Why don’t you breastfeed? Don’t you know formula is evil?”

It’s not. But let’s get back to gloating. Nationwide, about 50 percent of 6-month-old babies are breastfed. In Oregon, the rate is more than 64 percent. According to the CDC’s rankings of “support indicators” for breastfeeding, Oregon lags behind only Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, besting the rest of the nation. Or should we say breasting?

BETH SLOVIC.

no.

T H E K I N S P I R A C Y.T U M B L R . C O M

no.

Because white people all over the world covet our woodpiles and tepees…

Somewhere around 2012, while living off Southeast Division Street, Summer Allen started to notice it: twine, yellowed American flags, farm tools. “It was this huge shift in Portland,” she says. “It seemed like everything started having exactly the same reference points.”

But this design blogger and Instagram junkie didn’t spot the source of this pattern until January 2015.

“Only a couple weeks ago,” she says, “I noticed Kinfolk was linked to this. In all of these feeds, a Kinfolk cover would appear.”

Kinfolk is a Portland-based lifestyle magazine founded in 2011—a purveyor of trust-fund Americana and a lover of elaborate group dinners, a cultural touchstone of those for whom all of life is intentional.

Allen made a folder on her phone, labeling it “The Kinspiracy.” In three days, she gathered 300 photo feeds made

by Kinfolk fans, all bizarrely similar. “ W hy are there so many photos of piles of wood?,” she says, remembering. “It was things beyond lattes and shoes. People on a canoe, which seems strange. Tepees. Sliced citrus.”

As Kinfolk has expanded, so has the Kinspiracy. The things Allen saw on Division Street in 2012 are now in Stockholm, Moscow, Tokyo and New York. It has spread to the places where Kinfolk goes. The yellow light is contagious.

Portland has colonized the hive mind of Instagram.

So in January, Allen put all the Kinspiracy pictures on a Tumblr account (thekinspiracy.tumblr.com), with the subhead, “Making White People Feel Artistic Since 2011.”

It was meant only as a “catty joke” for maybe 10 friends. But it, too, spread across Facebook and the blogosphere within weeks. Jezebel swooned. And Gawker asked her to write an article. “People could suddenly put their finger on what had been bothering them,” Allen says. “Seeing them all together seemed really creepy.”

She now lives in Los Angeles—but, of course, the Kinspiracy is there, too. For example, someone who worked for Kinfolk reached out to her, deeply offended at her Tumblr.

As for A llen’s own Instagram feed? “Oh,” she says. “I mostly just take photos of my cats, and drunken selfies.”

MATTHEW KORFHAGE. CONT. on page 17 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

15

16

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

no.

Because the city’s quintessential dive bar survives the onslaught of condos and chains…

Southeast Division Street was a very different place when I moved there. Saturday nights did not find ladies in high heels hopping out of cabs, or packs of drunken suburbanites roving between bars. There was Pok Pok and Stumptown Coffee, but there were no lines for blueberry-andsausage ice cream, no urban wineries scoring raves from The New York Times and no slab-faced condoplexes populated by wellbranded local chains like Little Big Burger, St. Honoré, Bollywood Theater and Koi Fusion. You never had to drive around the block searching for parking.

That was all so long ago.

Just over three years now.

As a recent transplant, I’m in no position to mourn old Portland or wail about

what’s being lost when we smash a row of old bungalows to erect another concrete box lined with reclaimed barnwood so more people like me can move here. But I will say that Division Street, in my opinion, currently kinda sucks.

And yet, it’s still home to what is objectively the best dive bar in Portland— Reel M Inn. That fact was reinforced several Saturdays ago, when I showed up to watch the Seattle Seahawks play the Green Bay Packers for a chance to go to the Super Bowl. By happenstance, among the crowd were this newspaper’s visual arts critic and the most awarded brewmaster in the state.

The chicken and jojos are still spot-on, and a plastic cup of Coors Light was $2.

But it’s the people that make a bar. At a neighboring table: a Portland native in a North Face jacket who says he’s a Bengals fan, a Packers fan from Alaska in a Fox Motor Sports trucker hat, a bearded Rams/ Seahawks fan in hiking boots, and a guy in Packers-branded mesh running shorts.

As far as I could tell, the entire opera-

27 REASONS JENNIFER PLITZKO

CONT.

tion was being managed by one bartender, Carey, whose name hangs above the Jameson and Johnnie Walker Red. Everyone is nice and polite and cool, even as they taunt and yell “sack his ass!”

At the end of the game, after the bone piles have been cleared and Jermaine Kearse has won the Seahawks a place in

the Super Bowl, everyone shakes hands, settles up their tabs and heads out to their cars. These days, of course, those cars are two or three blocks away. Sure, it would be nice to find a spot right out front. But, really, what’s there to complain about?

MARTIN CIZMAR.

P U R R I N G TO N ’ S C AT C A F E

no.

Because we’re still No. 1 in semi-factual superlatives…

NO. 1 MOST LIVABLE CITY IN THE U.S. —Monocle magazine, July 2014

NO. 2 CITY FOR ATTRACTING AND RETAINING COLLEGEAGE PEOPLE —The New York Times/

NO. 1 MOST GENTRIFIED CITY OF THE CENTURY

Portland State University, September 2014

—Governing magazine, February 2015

NO. 4 BEST BIKING CITY —Bicycling magazine,

NO. 1 BEST PLACE TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY

August 2014

—Money magazine,

NO. 1 STATE FOR VOTER TURNOUT IN THE 2014 GENERAL ELECTION

November 2014

NO. 1 WORLD’S BEST BEER CITY

—The Bulletin (Bend), Nov. 10, 2014

—CNN.com, November 2014;

no.

Thrillist, August 2014

NO. 1 WHITEST CITY IN AMERICA

NO. 1 AMERICA’S FITTEST CITY

—Al Jazeera America, November 2013

—Men’s Health magazine,

Because we finally have a cat cafe, like every other city that matters…

Purringtons Cat Lounge was not quite the first functional cat cafe in North America. But it was close. Portlanders Kristen and Sergio Castillo were the first to announce plans to open a cat cafe in the United States. It’s just that like a lot of Portlanders, they took a little while to get it together.

It was worth the wait. One room is a cafe with food, beer, wine and all things caffeinated. The other, though? It’s a world of cats—up to 10 at a time, acting like cats do. They

hang out when they want to hang out, and when they don’t, their tails go up.

For such moments there is the beer, which you can bring in.

There’s an admission fee, sure.

And there’s a waiting list. And there are rules about how you can hang with the cats. But that’s because the cat room is in high demand, just like bangin’ Miami VIP sections and the inner sanctum of a Mormon temple.

But the best part about the cat cafe is you can do more than visit. You

can take the cats home. Purringtons partnered with Cat Adoption Team, so once you sober up after falling in love—this is where the nightclub metaphor breaks down—you can talk to somebody about adopting.

Does Miami have a cat cafe?

No, it does not. Does Seattle? They don’t care about anybody. It’s us, Tokyo, Paris, New York, Los Angeles and, uh, Oakland and Denver.

You know—the places that matter.

LUCAS CHEMOTTI.

March 2014

NO. 1 CITY FOR PET TRAVELERS

NO. 1 KINKIEST CITY

—GoPetFriendly.com,

—Kink University,

April 2014

January 2015

NO. 1 MOST COURTEOUS DRIVING CITY IN THE COUNTRY —AutoVantage road rage survey, May 2014

NO. 2 AMERICA’S MOST VEGAN-FRIENDLY CITY —Peta.com, September 2014

NO. 1 CITY FOR LIVE MUSIC IN THE COUNTRY —Willamette Week, “26

NO. 1 WINNINGEST SPORTS CITY IN NORTH AMERICA

Reasons to Love Portland,” Feb. 26, 2014

—USA Today’s For the Win, December 2014 CONT. on page 18 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

17

CONT.

TONY WECKER / THE PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS

27 REASONS

no.

Because Moda Center is fully Portlandified…

When the Trail Blazers sold the Rose Garden’s naming rights to a health insurance company in 2013, it felt like Portland was losing part of its soul. Most sports arenas are vacuous monuments to American corporatism, and if we’re being honest, the RG wasn’t much different: It’s where you went to see basketball or the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and paid $10 for a cup of Coors Light to wash down a boiled hot dog. But for two decades, it was our vacuous monument, with a name evocative of the city itself. It didn’t help that Blazers fans are, as sports columnist Bill Simmons once put it, a cult of glorified soccer moms. It felt like our giant children were being sold off to the highest bidder.

Indeed, these days a game at Moda Center doesn’t feel like it did at the Rose Garden. Instead, it feels like home.

In the two years since it was renamed, the arena has undergone a process of Portlandification. Last year, the arena localized its food options, bringing in Po’Shines, Bunk Sandwiches, Killer Burger, Fire on the Mountain and Sizzle Pie. In the summer, the upper-level smoking patio was converted into the Pines, a standing bar with an Oregon-heavy tap list and a panoramic view of downtown. This season, instead of pumping up fans at halftime with “Rock and Roll Part 2,” or another clichéd jock jam, the team has taken to spotlighting local bands—from the Decemberists and Sleater-Kinney to truly underground acts such as Onuinu, Mean Jeans, the Chicharones and Magic Mouth.

“We want to make it a show that’s not a cookie-cutter NBA experience,” says Todd Bosma, the Blazers’ director of game operations. “We want it to feel like Portland.”

Sure, “Moda Center” still sounds more like a place you’d go for a gastrointestinal exam. But when fans wave signs declaring it “Our House,” the claim rings truer today than it ever did before. Now, if they’d just bring back the damn chalupas…

MATTHEW SINGER.

no.

Because our 2-year-olds could survive the Oregon Trail…

Inside Little Seeds Farm School, there’s a miniature covered wagon and a toddler-sized stuffed horse. Nearby, a walk-in butterfly cage. Around back, chickens cluck next to what will become the goat house.

“Everyone who comes over says, ‘Oh, it’s so Portland,” says Brittany Witherite, who runs the school from her home in Southeast Portland’s Sellwood neighborhood with partner Geoff Fasulo, a former farmer.

Like a lot of preschools and day care centers in Portland, Little Seeds is teaching kids all the skills they need to be homesteaders.

Children who can’t yet form full sentences know butter doesn’t 18

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

27 REASONS B R I T TA N Y W I T H E R I T E

CONT. magically appear on the shelves of Fred Meyer because they are taught how to make it.

Kids at Little Seeds—and at day care centers with yearslong wait lists like ChildRoots—aren’t eating microwaved chicken nuggets for lunch.

At Little Seeds, they grow their own radishes, broccoli and kale onsite. Their art projects don’t involve smelly glue, glitter and googly eyes. Children learn to weave, sometimes using grasses and other objects they find on walks in their neighborhoods.

Students—some as young as 2—will make their own candles and applesauce. When the goats arrive, they’ll also make their own cheese.

Other schools may be drilling children on their letters. Little Seeds pupils are learning to connect with the land. “All of these things help to create really self-sufficient kids who are learning their importance in the world,” Witherite says.

“Our world is slower and hopes to create something that children really did live in in the older days.” BETH SLOVIC.

Because we can now admit the airport carpet thing got a little out of hand…

On Jan. 23, after a yearlong farewell tour, Portland International Airport finally let go of the last scraps of its 28-year-old carpet.

In some ways, it was a relief. Portland’s love affair with its teal flooring got coverage from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and NBC’s Brian Williams (who may or may not have actually been there). Not because

FOR A 15% DISCOUNT, APPLY COUPON CODE WWEEK15 TO YOUR ONLINE ORDER

the carpet was considered especially interesting outside of this city, but because of how obsessed with it this city seemed.

In the year between the announced removal and the final dumpster run, PDX’s carpet inspired tributes both commercial and not: coffee mugs, a Rogue beer, tattoos, socks, shirts, Ashbrook 5-panel hats, Nike shoes, bicycle helmets, and thousands of shoes-on-carpet selfies.

There is something beautiful in the whole thing, and it’s not the carpet. Let’s be honest, the old carpet was of average aesthetic value as high-traffic flooring goes. It was us, all along.

Portlanders see beauty in the unlikeliest places and will take anything to an absurd extreme.

LUCAS CHEMOTTI.

F R O M L E F T T O R I G H T : R O G U E A L E , T H E AT H L E T I C H AT, P DX C A R P E T S T O R E P I L L O W & H AT, T H E AT H L E T I C S O C K S

no.

fetcheyewear.com | 877.274.0410

Because we have the craziest legal hotels in America…

You can spend the night in a tugboat. You can spend the night in an old church. You can spend the night in a tiny house painted bright pink. You can spend the night in an attic stocked with books.

You can spend the night in a mud hut under the St. Johns Bridge. You can spend the night in a condo above the Steel Bridge. You can spend the night in several Airstream trailers—including one, remodeled with hardwood floors, placed in the middle of a vineyard with four intermittently friendly ducks. You can spend the night in a home where the next morning, the family downstairs will rent you bicycles.

And all of this is legal! Well, most of it. Some of it, maybe.

Last summer, Portland became the first city in the nation to start collecting taxes from the

short-term rental website Airbnb. That p u t s P DX o n t h e short list of cities welcoming visitors to stay, with the blessing of city officials, in just about any kind of room in just about any nook in the city.

Of course, it’s also true that all these miniature, adorable, insidiously gentrifying Airbnb hotels are required to get a city safety inspection by the end of this month. Which means you can sleep with the peace of mind that your DIY inn is not a death trap.

It also means that some of this vacation whimsy will shut down, balking at increased costs, meddling inspectors or the need for fire escapes.

But did we mention the tugboat? You can stay in a tugboat. AARON MESH.

DENISE

no.

CONT. on page 21 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

19

20

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

CONT. no.

no.

Because you can get beer on tap at coffee houses and coffee on tap at beer bars…

The two great Portland brew cultures are merging.

It began simply. Somewhere along the way, Portland’s third-wave coffeehouses figured out that at the end of an all-day study session or coffee klatch, their customers were walking off to get a beer somewhere else. Why not just offer a crisp, profitable beer so they’ll stay put? The downtown Stumptown was one of the first, with a beer tap and even Chimay available—although the beer tap recently went to nitro coldbrewed coffee. These days, alongside its nitro cold-brew tap, Ristretto has a beer tap offering Hopperhead. Barista likewise has a rotating beer tap, with cider next to that.

As of this year, it’s also gone the

Because the Olympics of Weed are coming the very same month we legalize…

other way, with coffee getting its own tap line at Portland bars. And at the new Mad Sons bar, themed after the American Revolution, a nitro beer tap of Old Rasputin—an imperial stout thicker and blacker than coffee—shares space with a tap of crisp nitro Stumptown.

Lardo sandwiches has a nitro cold-brew tap right next to the beer.

To further muddy the mud, Port-

no.

Because the zoo is saving butterflies from extinction...

P H O T O S : M A D S O N S B Y T H O M A S T E A L , B U T T E R F LY B Y O R E G O N Z O O , H O U S E O M E DY S H OW BY W I L L CO RW I N

The Oregon Zoo gets most of its press, good and bad, for its “charismatic megavertebrates” (that ’s zoo-speak for elephants) and its “meme-friendly mammals” (otters who can dunk basketballs). But the most impressive thing our zoo does is protect the existence of species you might not see flitting away.

That is to say, the Oregon Zoo breeds butterflies.

The zoo’s ef for ts to preser ve Nor t hwe s t a n i m a l s —i nclud i ng turtles, pygmy rabbits and the huge, bald California condor—are among its most successful. The triumphs include the Taylor’s checkerspot no.

Because we own reality...

Portland didn’t even watch The Real World when the show was shot here.

We didn’t let them film in most of our bars, so the bros and ladybros just hung out at Subway.

But bring us a televised contest that involves actual skill, and we will own that shit. On Chopped, Nong Poonsookwattana, of Nong ’s Khao Man Gai, broke down a suckling pig like it was made of Legos before sending the competition home in doggie

27 REASONS

butterf ly, an endangered species, and the Oregon silverspot butterfly, which lays larvae on just one kind of violet.

It’s not easy.

“They’re very small and delicate animals,” says David Shepherson, the Oregon Zoo’s deputy conservation manager. “And because there are so many of them, it’s a record-keeping challenge.”

Butterf ly keepers track every bags. In 2011, Vitaly Paley dirtied up the whites of Iron Chef Jose Garces.

Portland-born Vecepia Towery Robinson outlasted everybody else on Survivor: Marquesas and took home $1 million. And most famously, our fashion designers have walked off with four of 13 top prizes on Project Runway.

As this issue prints, Departure chef Gregory Gourdet is poised to win Top Chef: Boston. Imperial’s Dougie Adams, who seemed equally unbeatable for a while, ended up in third.

Why do we do so well? “Portlanders like to start their own trends,” says Michelle Lesniak, Project Runway’s Season 11 winner and a final-four finisher last week on Project Runway

land now has a Coffee Beer festival at Goose Hollow Inn each January, with 16 local breweries mixing the two, from Imperial Oak Aged Coffee Stout to a Mocha Banana Split Weizendoppelbock. Half-and-half orders of cold brew and stout at the local pub—we’ll call it a Portland speedball—can’t be far behind. LUCAS CHEMOTTI.

single insect they raise, even taking note of each one’s parents, so they don’t release too many genetically similar butterflies into the wild. And the staff replicates the bleak winters of Oregon and central Washington, when the insects hibernate.

“We keep the Oregon silverspot butterflies in the fridge all winter,” Shepherson says. “The challenge is keeping them in an environment that’s not too damp, so they don’t get moldy.”

The zoo ha s relea sed 17,000 silverspot butterflies into their habitats, along with 18,475 Taylor checkerspot butterflies. It shares some of the credit for the checkerspot release with Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Belfair, Wash., where zoo officials guide a conservation program.

That’s right: Prisoners are raising butterflies. It’s not technically in Portland, but everybody deserves something to love. AARON MESH. All-Stars. “Other cities follow.”

While it’s obviously good for the future career path, it has its drawbacks, and Lesniak coached Gourdet, who is a friend, on coping with the loss of anonymity after winning a show. She’s convinced he will win as well. The downside? Strangers write to tell her what plastic surgery they think she should get—pinned ears, apparently—and rubberneck at Smokehouse 21.

“I can’t pick my nose in public without getting caught,” Lesniak says. “I had a meltdow n w ith a g i rl f r iend where I w a s cr y i ng , and somebody walks up and says, ‘Hey, can I take a photo with you?’”

MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

The Cannabis Cup is coming to Portland. We repeat: The Cannabis Cup is coming to Portland, the very same month we do what Peter Tosh said.

For those of you who haven’t been writing letters to High Times magazine for years, the Cannabis Cup is the Super Bowl (heh) of weed, the biggest cannabis trade show, awards show and pot party in the country.

The cup showcases the newest sciencey gear and hybrid strains, the all-and-sundry innovations in cannabinoid delivery the weed public has concocted in the previous 12 months.

The location of the Portland event and exact details are still TBD. But one thing is known: Right when shit gets legal, it also gets judged. These are the most prominent awards in pot. A team of experts with knowledge going back decades will assess the product of every grower in Oregon who submits nug samples—and believe us, every good one will. And then the Cannabis Cup will go to the best sativa, indica, hybrid, shatter, edible, hash, highCBD, whatever, in all of Oregon. It’s accreditation, people.

And that’s just as good for the new wave of novices as it is for the old pros.

Oh, and there will be free weed samples. Did we mention that? Yeah. Free weed samples. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

no.

Because you can watch live standup comedy in the basement of a bike shop… ...and in somebody’s house.

...and right before a metal show

...and in a video arcade

...and in a recording studio

...and at a sandwich shop

...and in a record store.

...and at a coffeehouse

...and in a below-ground rumpus room

...and at a pizza place ...and at a gay bar ...and at a drag club ...and in the basement of a pool hall ...and at an art gallery

...and in a burlesque dinner theater ...and at a zine publishing center ...and at an Ethiopian restaurant.

V E L O C U LT ; S O M E B O DY ’ S H O U S E ; G R O U N D KO N T R O L ; B R A S S TA C K S , F O R D F O O D & D R I N K ; MISSISSIPPI PIZZA; TRUE BREW; CRUSH; DARCELLE X V ; J A C K L O N D O N P U B ; D I S J E C TA ; W H I T E O W L SOCIAL CLUB; JACKPOT RECORDING STUDIO; TURN TURN TURN; EASTBURN; THE ANALOG; INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING RESOURCE CENTER; HABESHA LOUNGE. (ALL SHOWS OCCURRED WITHIN T H E PA S T Y E A R . )

CONT. on page 22 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

21

CONT.

C I T YO F VA N C O U V E R . U S

27 REASONS

no.

Because the city we make fun of is cooler than the place most people live…

An experiment: Go pretty much anywhere in America, and tell people about Portland’s most-mocked neighborhood.

There’s a indie movie theater that serves booze and is currently showing Oscar-nominated shorts and WolfCop. There are five breweries within a short walk of each other, through an old and leafy business district. There’s a divey 24-hour taco shop between them, and nearby a much better taco shop that specializes in fish tacos and craft beer. They have a record shop. It’s very easy to score weed. You can buy a century-old bungalow within walking distance of a hardware store and Safeway for $180,000.

“Why, that sounds like where the hipsters live!”

And yet, Vancouver is, for the most part, not where the hipsters live. But that’s because of us, not because of them.

Vancouver is—in the grand scheme of things, relative to the rest of the country—actually pretty cool. It’s a livable, walkable, cheap little burg that would be the new Asheville or Madison if it were located in North Carolina or Wisconsin.

The fact that we snooty Portlanders can smirk at these people even as they continue to acquire more and more of the trappings of contemporary urban living is a statement about just how special Portland is right now.

Only one store specializing in the sale of outmoded plastic media and three shops where you can legally buy a Schedule I drug? Ugh, I’d rather live in Lents. MARTIN CIZMAR.

no.

Because a Portland author dared shame the publishing industry...

ENJOY A SELECTION OF 30 BEER TAPS, 8 WINE TAPS, CRAFT COCKTAILS, AND GROWLER FILLS,

PLUS BOTTLED BEER SHOP FEATURING MORE THAN 450 LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL BEERS.

IRISH INSPIRED CUISINE / LUNCH AND DINNER 7 DAYS A WEEK BRUNCH SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS

FIRST NATIONAL TAPHOUSE

DOWNTOWN PORTLAND — 1962 SW 5TH & COLLEGE | 971-703-4579

22

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

When Ursula K. Le Guin accepted the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters last November, it quickly became national news. Not just because of the recognition given to the often-overlooked genre of fantasy and science fiction, but because of Le Guin’s ballsy acceptance speech.

The Portland author and literary legend called out the megabooksellers who value sales strategies over story, and even writers and publishers for “letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.”

“I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom,” Le Guin extolled.

You could almost hear the drumbeat of war against Amazon.

People took notice. Within hours, Le Guin’s speech was reported on NPR, in The New Yorker and The Guardian, and elsewhere.

“The press glommed onto it, and it went out very quickly on social media, too. By the next morning I was giving Maru the Cat some real competition on YouTube,” says Le Guin of the frenzy that followed. “I said something a lot of people evidently wanted to hear said. And I am very glad of that. Now I just hope that they—especially the writers and the readers and the buyers of books—will repeat it, act on it, and carry it on farther.”

PENELOPE BASS.

27 REASONS CHRISTIE SPILLANE PHOTOGRAPHY

CONT.

GLAD BIKERS: Natalie Ramsland (left), owner of Sweetpea Bicycles, with Gladys Bikes owner Leah Benson.

no.

no.

no.

Because the OLCC really takes care of serious boozehounds...

Because we have the best womanfocused bike shop in the country...

Because no one ever asks you what your real job is…

A lot of people complain about the Oregon Liquor Control Commission—dingy stores, poor locations, inconvenient hours. Last year, grocers who want to sell booze in their stores wasted nearly $3 million trying unsuccessfully to kill the OLCC, and they’ll probably try again.

But for booze geeks, drinkers who like chasing rare bottles, the OLCC’s online bottle-finding service, OregonLiquorSearch.com, is awesome.

At a time when demand for premium bourbon, whiskey, tequila and rum is growing faster than the Chinese economy, it can be difficult to find what you’re looking for.

Say you want to bribe your father-in-law or boss with a bottle of Elijah Craig Barrel Proof bourbon. The stuff is vanishingly rare, but the search will tell you which of the 248 stores have it. And if the store that has your bottle is far from home, the OLCC will ship it to the nearest store.

The whole setup is kind of like Tinder for drinkers.

And to stretch the dating metaphor a bit further, the happiness you find on the OLCC search, unlike on some dates, won’t leave you financially embarrassed. That’s because the state markup—about 100 percent according to an OLCC spokeswoman—is standard no matter how popular or rare the bottle. You won’t pay extra for Pappy Van Winkle here. The OLCC sells its Pappy allocation to lucky buyers at its regular markup, as it does other rare bottles.

You’d never see that in California or Washington, states where liquor prices are not controlled.

So, yeah, shopping at the OLCC’s stores may lack the aesthetic pleasure of dropping into New Seasons or a freshly tricked-out Freddie’s, and you may not get rockbottom prices on high-volume sellers that you’d get at Costco in the ’Couv. But if you’re looking for happiness and predictability, the OLCC has your back. NIGEL JAQUISS.

A well-fitted bike can feel like an extension of your body, inextricably linked to your sense of self. Like Hedwig to Harry Potter, combat boots to Daria; or white privilege to Batman. Leah Benson, owner of Gladys Bikes on Northeast Alberta Street, seems especially attuned to the bike-rider connection.

“To some people, a bike is just a sporting good, but for a lot of people, it ends up being more in your life,” Benson says. “It helps to create a storyline for what you’re doing.

Your bike takes you to all sorts of places. It starts to represent you in certain ways.”

Benson, who worked in the nonprofit world before opening Gladys in the fall of 2013, drew inspiration for her shop from the way pet adoption agencies paired animals with owners. Gladys offers semi-custom bike builds and a saddle library, where $25 lets customers try out any of shop’s collection of bicycle seats. She also took cues from She Bop, the woman-focused sex shop in Portland.

“The reason I like calling it women-focused is because it’s an open invitation,” Benson says. “We’re thinking of you first. You’re not an afterthought. Men are welcome here, but it’s women that we’re thinking about when we purchase products and when we design programs and even when we design our marketing.”

Gladys was named 2014’s best female-friendly bike shop by Interbike, the “largest bicycle trade event in North America.” Aside from showcasing bikes and gear made for women, the shop’s inviting aesthetics reflect its female focus. During the interview, we sat in comfy yet not overly plush chairs in the shop’s “living-room space.”

“It takes a space that is traditionally thought of as a male realm and and makes it more comfortable for a woman to come into,” she says. ANNA WALTERS.

When guitarist Cory Paolo moved to Portland this spring from his native Pittsburgh, his biggest surprise was the question people didn’t ask. “What you do isn’t how you make money here,” he says. “Back home, when I told people I was a musician, they would say, ‘Yeah…but what do you do?’”

Your band might pack the Alberta Street Pub on Saturday, and then you stumble back to work at a Shell station on Monday. But people don’t give a shit about what it’s like to work at a gas station. And you don’t have to bother telling them about it.

We live in a city where the question of what you do doesn’t mean for money. In Portland, it can be answered, “I’m a filmmaker working on a remake of Purple Rain set in the Sahara.” And by God, people will be excited to hear it.

Curtis Cook, a guy who spends his workday at a call center, is one of the funniest standup comedians in the city. Matt Shelby, who spends his days as a communications strategist for the state, is fully licensed to brew and sell Red Ox beer out of his garage. After stints backing up Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, and Marvin Gaye, legendary jazz drummer Mel Brown got a day job in Portland as a bookkeeper—a job he’d wake up for each morning after long nights spent gigging with the city’s finest jazz talent. No one remembers that Mel Brown was a bookkeeper.

Back in 2003, author Katherine Dunn told Chuck Palahniuk that everyone in Portland has three distinct lives, and no one cares about the one that pays the rent.

Some things never change. PARKER HALL. CONT. on page 25 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

23

24

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

CONT.

27 REASONS FLINT CO./STONECRANDALLSTUDIO.COM

no.

Because we are still kicking Kickstarter’s ass on beverage technology…

Look at this glass. This glass is amazing. It is laser-etched, based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey, to be the exact shape of Mount Hood on the bottom. Mount Hood is drowning in beer! Just like the entire state of Oregon!

Its makers, a f ledgling company called North Drinkware, asked for a mere $15,000 on Kickstarter so they could start production on these boss glasses. Well, as of press time, they are about 2,600 percent funded on that goal.

They got over $400,000 in advance orders after a mere seven days. At least 4,000 people really want to drink a pint of beer out of Mount Hood.

Last August, it was a cooler. The Coolest Cooler. It had a blender, a built-in speaker, and a USB charger for phones. About 16,000 people were so desperate for one of these things, they gave Portlander Ryan Grepper $13.2 million, the most money anybody has ever received on Kickstarter for anything. Grepper already sort of looks and dresses like the kind of guy John Cusack would beat in a yacht race, and now he can probably buy a yacht.

In October 2014, Tony Peniche asked for

$18,000 to fund some kind of stick, called Whiskey Elements, that would make your whiskey taste old. Y’all gave him almost $200,000. In November 2013, a group called Mazama got like $24,000 for ceramic drinking vessels. Lord knows what you’d fetch for a new and better kind of beer bong. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. no.

Because our most famous actress goes record shopping with our coolest athlete…

ALLISON KEREK

In a recent profi le on the reunited Sleater-Kinney, Pitchfork shared an interesting off-hand tidbit about singer-guitarist and Portlandia star Carrie Brownstein. Two, in fact. Not only does she frequently exchange emails with Blazers owner Paul Allen, she goes record shopping with the team’s center and noted super-nerd, Robin Lopez.

To put this in perspective, it ’s sor t of like discovering Eddie Vedder goes antiquing with Richard Sherman. A las, it wasn’t

something they did for a sketch: According to a clerk at Everyday Music on Northeast Sandy Boulevard, Lopez and Brow nstein, on at least one occasion, came in together.

He couldn’t remember what they purchased (though on previous solo visits, he recalls Lopez buy ing a Nas a lbum, a Paul Simon box set a nd a DV D of Orson Welles’ T he Magnificent Ambersons, because of course he did), so we’ll just have to take a guess…

MATTHEW SINGER.

NEWSLETTER

Beyond the Print

Do you like Free stuFF? Sign up for our newsletter, Willamette Week’s promotions and events weekly email including WW event picks, things to eat, drink, places to go and more!

Sign up at http://bit.ly/wwnewsletter

Have an event you would like to feature?

Email promotions@wweek.com for details.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

25

Antoinette Antique & Estate Jewelry

2328 NW Westover Rd. AntoinetteJewelry.com

Traditional Exotic Fare All you-Can-Eat Buffets & Menu Orders Vegetarian, Vegan & Gluten-Free Options

Parkrose since 2009 8303 NE Sandy Blvd 503-257-5059

Lloyd District Open 1403 NE Weidler 503-442-3841

Vancouver since 2001 6300 NE 117th Ave 360-891-5857

NamasteIndianCuisine.com 26

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

CULTURE

KUNGFUTOAST

WEED

CHRONIC PROBLEMS MARIJUANA ADDICTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD WILL GATHER IN PORTLAND THIS WEEKEND. HERE IS ONE MAN’S HARROWING TALE OF POT ADDICTION.

BY PAUL G .

243-2122

My favorite description of being a marijuana addict is that it’s like getting your ass kicked by a Girl Scout. It really seems like it shouldn’t happen, that it can’t happen, and yet it keeps happening. You feel bad or anxious or depressed or bored, so you get high. After a brief “yahoo,” you feel all that bad stuff even more, because you’re inhaling a powerful depressant. Plus, now you don’t even want to go outside—much less, you know, do anything. So now you feel anxious again—and reach for the pipe again. It’s an excellent recipe for shame and despair.

The whole time you’re saying to yourself, “This is just weed. It’s not like I’m on a real drug.

I’m not homeless, or a criminal, or in terrible health. I’m just stoned—all the time, sure, but just stoned.”

A lot of people seem to think that marijuana addiction doesn’t even exist, or that there’s no physical addiction. This makes it harder for people to reach out for help.

Here’s a good definition of addiction: continued compulsive use despite negative consequences. You know, like, going through a red light because you’re stoned, getting into a wreck, then going home and hitting the bong to “relax.”

I’ve done shit like that more than a few times.

And that’s just the small-scale stuff. Chronic marijuana use doesn’t exactly inspire great accomplishments in life, so let’s say an addict is going nowhere, except home to get high, and that said addict gets depressed about it. Seeking inspiration or entertainment, that addict goes home and gets high. It sounds insane, because it is.

As for the physical addiction, more and more studies are finding that marijuana withdrawal is both difficult and dangerous, with particularly high suicide rates compared to other drug with-

drawals, especially as pot gets more powerful.

A lot of studies are also drawing heavy conclusions about what prolonged pot use does to your brain, especially if you start when you’re young.

I smoked pot more or less every day from my teenage years into my early 30s. If I wasn’t smoking, it was only because I didn’t have any.

I smoked before work, during work, after work, when I was out of work. I smoked to celebrate the good times and to mourn the bad times. I smoked pot the way alcoholics drink—alone and for no particular reason. My life got smaller and smaller, sadder and sadder. But my brain was so wrapped up in it that I kept reaching for the one thing that was making me miserable—the thing that used to work, back in the past.

Now, I’m not saying all pot smokers are addicts. That’s up to each person to decide. I just know that I was living out this comparison thoroughly: Your average alcoholic’s life drops off a cliff pretty quickly. A meth addict’s, very quickly.

For a pot addict, it’s just a long, slow slide into the muck. Long-term, chronic pot smoking sucks the life out of you so slowly, you don’t notice it’s happening. We’ve always got big plans to change the world, right after we smoke this joint.

What happened for me?

Well, I found out about IT’S JUST A Anonymous.

LONG, SLOW Marijuana My first thought was SLIDE INTO what you may have just thought: No shit? They THE MUCK. have that? Yes, they do.

You can pretty much put “anonymous” behind any damn thing that folks get weird with, then go to a meeting for it.

Once in, it’s the same program that AA created; just change “alcohol” to “marijuana” in the 12 Steps, and get to work, with the support of others who have been there. This month I plan to celebrate 15 years of continuous sobriety, thanks to MA. Portland, as you might imagine, has a rather large MA community, and we’re hosting the MA World Convention this weekend.

Marijuana Anonymous is spreading all over the world and helping thousands of people who, like me, found themselves looking up at a rather terrifying Girl Scout who seemed to be kicking their ass.

GO: The Marijuana Anonymous World Convention is at the Portland Airport Holiday Inn, 8439 NE Columbia Blvd., FridaySunday, Feb. 13-15. Registration $100. See mawsconvention.org for details. Find local MA meetings at www.madistrict11.org.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

27

28

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

STREET

STREET

STYLISH THE BEST LOOKS OF THE WEEK. Photos by b r ia n a cer ezo wweek.com/street

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

29

FOOD: Pierogi! Kielbasa! Cartlandia!

MUSIC: An epic punk record from Divers.

OPERA: The cathartic Carmen.

MOVIES: 50 shades of Gus Van Sant.

34 37 47 53

SCOOP SWING LOW ALABAMA. budget weed: Washington state’s largest recreational weed seller, Vancouver’s New Vansterdam, is aiming to match street prices with a new 10-for-$10 program. “We understand the original intention behind Initiative 502 was to create a regulated and sustainable industry, while also pushing out a criminal market,” says Shon-Lueiss Harris, an assistant manager at the shop. “High prices have proved a hindrance to this goal.”

The going street price in Vancouver is $10 a gram, so, on Friday, Feb. 13, New Amsterdam plans to roll out 10 different dime bags of its own. Among the first $10-per-gram strains will be the wildly popular-in-Portland Cinex (18.9 percent THC) and the Dutch classic White Widow (20.1 percent THC) from K&M, an outdoor grower in Okanogan County. Also available: Omega from Emerald Twist, an indoor-grown strain that established itself as a new favorite in the WW office after impressing weed-hating writer Roberto Jamón. french foxes: The old St. Jack location at 2039 SE Clinton St. is going French again. But according to co-owner Edwin Thanhouser, Renard (that’s francais for “fox”) will be a lot less formal than its predecessor, with Parisian-style bistro sandwiches, weekly trivia nights, a plate of steak frites under $10 and bottomless pommes for around $5. Chef and co-owner Dulce Frommer (Accanto, Cocotte) plans casually adventurous dishes such as crispy pig’s ear and a French omelet made with truffled mashed potatoes. The most novel plan is a brunch modeled after a meal Thanhouser encountered in Paris. “Le Brunch” is a prix-fixe breakfast where the food arrives shortly after you do, with no ordering—you simply mark a card “gluten-free” or “no-meat,” and the food keeps rolling. Renard hopes to open by April. future drinking: There’s another beer-centric restaurant opening within swigging distance of the Oregon Convention Center. Altabira City Tavern will open in May at the soon-toopen Hotel Eastlund at 1021 NE Grand Ave., joining the 99 Oregon taps at Kurt Huffman’s Loyal Legion and ex-Wildwood chef Paul Kasten’s planned beer-pairing restaurant, amid a rapid-fire spate of big openings on the eastside. >> Stag PDX is hoping to beat the curse of 317 NW Broadway when it becomes the fourth bar to open in that space in a year. Tiger Bar closed in January 2014, followed by the rapid opening and shuttering of the Royale and Whiskey Dolls Game Room. Stag will be a strip club. (Despite their heel-appropriate names, neither Tiger Bar nor Whiskey Dolls had strippers. The Royale had only burlesque.) cheap skates: Last year, the iconic CCS skate catalog was shuttered by Foot Locker, which had paid $100 million for it. The owner of the Portland-based Daddies chain bought the brand and is planning to relaunch it as a mail-order catalog in the next year. Not everyone is happy about this, including the owners of local skate shops. For more, check Lucas Chemotti’s video story on wweek.com.

30

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

HEADOUT ANNIE SEO

WILLAMETTE WEEK

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE

WEDNESDAY FEB. 11

Songs about butts, sponsored by a weed store. Plus a band called Smoochknob. Is anything more romantic? Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 345-7892, 9 pm, $20, 21+.

Motown is baby-making music, even if it’s long past the age where it can safely bear children. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 248-4335, 7:30 pm, $35 and up.

Drop your kids off at the Oregon Zoo and get the first hot sex you’ve had in years without the aid of a white-noise machine. Oregon Zoo, 4001 SW Canyon Road, 2261561, 5 pm-9:30 am, $48, ages 7-13.

Nothing puts your Valentine in the mood faster than Grave Digger smashing up a 1997 Honda Civic. Moda Center, 1 N Center Court St., 797-9619, 2 and 7:30 pm, $10-$45.

Best way to avoid Valentine’s Day drama? Call it Mardi Gras instead. Dress up, slurp jambalaya, peel your own shrimp, get those fingers dirty. Flash for those beads.

Dance to Charmaine Neville. Get laid anyway. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686, 7:30 pm, $25-$41, 21+.

Some courses are naughty, some courses are nice, and it’s all put together with the aid of an architect. Everybody knows architects are sexy. Din Din, 920 NE Glisan St., 971-544-1350, 7:30 pm, $100.

DENGUE FEVER [CAMBODIA ROCKS] An L.A.based group trucking in Southeast Asia’s funky back catalog, Dengue Fever just released its fifth album, The Deepest Lake, which, while more obviously infl uenced by Western R&B, still maintains the distinct air of Cambodian psychedelia. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $14 advance, $16 day of show. 21+.

THURSDAY FEB. 12 REVOLUTION HALL PREVIEW WEEKEND [SCHOOL’S IN] The impressive new concert venue at the former Washington High School kicks off with an album-release show for local folk supergroup Alialujah Choir, followed Friday by a soldout “pre-Valentine’s Day pity party” from Dan Savage and Saturday’s season opener of the Live Wire radio variety show. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., No. 110, 2883895. See revolutionhallpdx.com for tickets and starting times of events.

FRIDAY FEB. 13 HOW TO END POVERTY IN 90 MINUTES [THEATER] $10 of every ticket goes toward a $1,000 pile of money, and y’all gotta fi gure out how to spend it to save the world. What could be assnumbing bleacher fare becomes a real and rare chance to think together. Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St., 488-5822, portlandplayhouse.org. 7:30 pm. $40 ($20 rush, cash-only).

SATURDAY FEB. 14 ZWICKELMANIA [BEER] This is the best Valentine’s Day ever for single men with beards! Breweries all over Oregon are opening their doors and letting you try samples straight from the tanks. Check oregoncraftbeer.org/ zwickelmania for full details.

11 am-4 pm.

SUNDAY FEB. 15 Everyone who you love will be dead someday. BeerQuest PDX; 460-7150; beerquestpdx.com; tours at 2 , 6 and 7 pm; $55.

If you’re alone on Valentine’s Day, Cuddle Con will set up a stranger to snuggle the sad right out of you. Then you go home alone and cry. Cuddle Up to Me, 1015 E Burnside St., 719-6203, cuddlecon.com, 12:30 pm, $25-$65.

DIVERS [ANTHEMIC PUNK] Almost 30 years after the Replacements wrote a song about Portland, Portland has its answer to the Replacements. Divers are that damn good. Hello Hello, its debut full-length four years in the making, is worth the wait. High Water Mark Lounge, 6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 286-6513. 8 pm. $5.

21+.

ST. IGNATIUS ITALIAN DINNER [SPAGHETTI AVALANCHE] Every Sunday after Valentine’s Day, 107-year-old St. Ignatius Catholic church has had an Italian dinner.

What’s on the menu? The classics.

Red sauce. Spaghetti. Ravioli. Some meatballs. Like 10,000 meatballs.

St. Ignatius Parish, 3400 SE 43rd Ave., 777-1491. Noon-6 pm. $11.50 adults, $10 seniors, $6 kids.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

31

32

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

33

FOOD & DRINK = WW Pick.

Happy Hour all day Monday & Wednesday

EAT MOBILE JENNIFER PLITZKO

Now Serving

Highly recommended.

By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek. com. See page 3 for submission instructions.

Springwater Farm

Valentines Day Dinner La Calaca Comelona 2304 SE Belmont | 503-239-9675 4-10pm Mon–Sat

Saturday, February 14th The Farmers Feast Wildeats@msn.com

SATURDAY, FEB. 14 Zwickelmania

This is the best Valentine’s Day ever for single men with beards!

Breweries all over Oregon are opening their doors and letting you drink samples straight from the tanks. Check craftbeer.org/zwickelmania for full details. 11 am-4 pm.

Gothic Anti-Valentine’s Dinner

Glyph hates love, or Hallmark, or something, and will be hosting an anti-Valentine’s prix fixe dinner made by chef Doug Weiler only in the colors of black, red and white in homage to Edward Gorey, whose works will be read in counterpoint to a guitar and theremin duo. Wine will be had, but only in red and white. No black. Reserve tickets at BlackRedWhiteAtGlyph.brownpapertickets.com. Glyph Cafe & Arts Space, 804 NW Couch St, 719-5481. $65, $25 wine pairing.

SUNDAY, FEB. 15 St. Ignatius Italian Dinner

Since 1999

K KITCHEN ITCHEN & H OME

Canning For Canning Cozy-up your sweetheart Preserving— and Preserving— withhave gifts all from Mirador!

We have all you you need!

We need!

20% off

Ball Ball & & Weck Weck Canning CanningJars Jars Water Bath Canners Water Bath Canners 2106 SE SE Division Division 2106 Pressure Canners Pressure Canners 2106 SE Division Organic Cotton 503 • 231 • 5175 503 • 231• 5175 Juicer Strainers Look!

Juicer Strainers Mon-Sat 10-6 503 • 10-6 231 •We’re 5175 WECK Mon-Sat SheetsFood & Blankets We’re new! new! WECK Food Dehydrators Dehydrators jars Sun 115 MON–SAT SUN 11- 5 jars & All Sun 11- 5 10-6 • No No plastic! plastic!

Books Fermenting Crocks Fermenting Crocks miradorkitchenandhome.com and andKits Kits www.miradorkitchenandhome.com www.miradorkitchenandhome.com Through February 28th

I

Shandong www.shandongportland.com

34

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

Eighty years of spaghetti and meatballs. Whew! That’s somethin’.

Every Sunday after Valentine’s Day, the 107-year-old Catholic church with the sign on Southeast Powell Boulevard has had an Italian dinner.

What’s on the menu? The classics. Red sauce. Spaghetti. Ravioli.

Some meatballs. Like 10,000 meatballs. But each year there’s something new, and this time it’s lemon gelato, the most refreshing of the gelatos. So come. You look so thin.

Why not eat the meatballs? You like the meatballs? Everybody likes the meatballs. St. Ignatius Parish, 3400 SE 43rd Ave., 777-1491. Noon-6 pm. $11.50 adults, $10 seniors, $6 kids.

Where to eat on Valentine’s Day. 1. Cocotte

2930 NE Killingsworth St., 227-2669, cocottepdx.com.

You go Valentine’s, you go French.

Because the French. Expect suggestive textures in the $70 V-Day five-course, from oysters to scallop tartare to cherry duck breast. $$$.

2. Simpatica

828 SE Ash St., 235-1600, simpaticapdx.com.

Simpatica will serve a many-course dinner for two on Valentine’s Day—at $59 apiece, including wine and tip—from steelhead tartare amuse-bouche to wagyu terra major steak. $$$.

3. Little Bird

Shandong

219 SW 6th Ave, 688-5952, littlebirdbistro.

The three-course dinner at Little Bird weirdly ends up being a V-Day www.shandongportland.com budget option at $55, amid foie gras and cassoulet. $$$.

4. Tabor Bread

5051 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 971-279-5530, taborbread.com.

Heat is hot. Tabor Bread promises an extra-spicy Valentine’s feast at $55 a pop, with farm-fresh tamales, tlacoyos, queso fundido and mole Coloradito. Wait 10 minutes after dinner to kiss. $$$.

5. Stoopid Burger

3441 N Vancouver Ave., 971-801-4180.

Drunk and alone on Valentine’s Day? Perfect. The fries are salty and crisp and always fresh, and the burgers are beautiful monstrosities. $.

SAUSAGE FESTIVAL: Kielbasa at the Cartlandia carnival.

TASTE OF POLAND If it’s been a while since you stopped in, you might be surprised to discover just how much Cartlandia has become a weird little world.

While most Portland pods remain confined to ever-narrowing lots and still enforce old-fashioned ideas about stylistic exclusivity, the self-described superpod is becoming a semi-autonomous village, complete with a parking shortage, dueling kebab shops and a remarkably diverse crowd.

Add one of Portland’s oldest food carts, Taste of Poland, to the mix. Founded in 1995, this Saturday Market fi xture recently opened a new cart back by the electric boxes.

Taste of Poland would make any pod better. The couple that owns this place make their kielbasa and pierogi from scratch every week.

Order this: Kielbasa ($6) It’s classic Eastern European comfort and pierogi ($4). food—rich, paprika-spicy and coated in dairy.

The kielbasa ($6) is reason enough to go: half beef, half pork, smoked over alder and cherry, with lots of pepper and no nitrates.

The meat plays nicely with a whole drawer of assorted spicy mustards even if the buns could stand to be a little fresher and crisper and the onions could use a little more caramelization. The pork keeps coming, with tiny crumbles of pink bacon on top and a warm stew of cabbage with roast pork on the side.

Pierogi ($4 for four, $9 for 10) are homespun, with mealy mashed potatoes hanging loose inside the chewy noodle. They’re covered in grilled onions and served with a quarter-pint of thick sour cream and a little salad of tomatoes and cucumbers in dill to balance out the richness.

Potato pancakes are pan-fried until they have a light brown crust and served with more sour cream and a little applesauce for dipping. With the closure of Stan’wiches, and Grandpa’s Cafe closed to those who are not members of the Polish Library Building Association, it’s hard to get housemade kielbasa and pierogi in this town. Well, now there’s a place, out in the city’s most dynamic pod. MARTIN CIZMAR. EAT: Taste of Poland, at Cartlandia, 8145 SE 82nd Ave., 863-6924, cartlandia.com.

DRANK

DEATH WISH BUNNY (HI-WHEEL) It is not wine. It is not mead. It is not cider. Until its mead program gets off the ground in six months, Portland’s Hi-Wheel Wine & Mead Co. mostly makes “fizzy wines”—fermented, carbonated fruit juice that is closest in description to an artisanal take on wine cooler, in flavors such as lavender-lemon and a lovely pomegranatehabanero. They are spiked, sweet and highly effervescent. Not all are successful. The Ruby Zozzle grapefruit combines two versions of tart for an uncomfortable acidic stew, and the easy-drinking summertime-style spritzers can feel a little like a less-syrupy version of what everybody used to drink in parking lots in high school. But the Death Wish Bunny? Total keeper. A mix of carrot juice, lemon, ginger and chai, it achieves a nice balance of savory and sweet, and both the ginger and citrus are nicely subdued. It’s like a vegan bowl as light alcoholic refreshment. Recommended. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

FOOD & DRINK lEAhNASh.com

REVIEW

all about trout: the excellent maple-smoked fish at brunch.

MORNING PEOPLE the cusp of medium, and lightly toasted crostini.

All things were at the very edge of underdone, but not at all underdone—which is another way of saying they were just right. The dish was like a Frenchified Broder plate, a bit fluffier and thicker and meltingly, fattily good.

But at least in early January dinner wasn’t in

BY M AT T H E W KO R F H AGE mkorfhage@wweek.com the same shape. At higher prices than brunch, the When your mom asked to go to a “nice” restaurant evening meals seemed to have forgone restraint, back in the day, she maybe pictured something but without corresponding ambition. The menu like Verdigris. Chef Johnny Nunn’s French- changes constantly, but a dish billed simply as tinged spot opened very quietly in December on chicken and Oregon truffles ($22) arrived with Northeast Fremont Street, in the mini-bougie plating less innovative than it was simply Dada. neighborhood forming around the Sabin Whole The chicken was overcooked, a jus-glazed breast Foods Market. And as with the copper patina served as a sheeted tabletop for legs made of that provides its name, Verdigris offers a sort of celery root: It was like a balancing rock stranded unbuffed, approachable version of luxury. In a by wind. A simple side preparation of truffles on Portland dining scene that eschews even finish celery root puree was much more successful, but on its wood, here you get tablecloths and a chef was bafflingly buried under a mountain of dry in whites. Service is among the most attentive in arugula. (The dish was later updated to include town without being obtrusive. The waiter might Smithfield ham and a 60-minute sous vide egg, even serve a courtesy wine pairing if you order a which comes across as a creamier version of poached; these also accompany multiple brunch little idiosyncratically for your appetizers.

But there is one thing that’s very Portland dishes, including spicy andouille sausage.)

Mea nwhile, a r icot taabout Verdigris, at least so far: watercress-crimini lasagna It’s best at brunch. order this: Any damn thing on Like Trinket and Roost and the brunch menu, but especially ($11) was pleasant enough but few others in town, the restau- maple-smoked trout ($11). unmemorable, and a little, rant offers a lovely and refined I’ll pass: For now, dinner. cupped endive salad ($10) filled Continental take on all-Amerwith cheese and candied nuts ican morning fare. And so the pancakes ($10) seemed to have drifted out of the early years of were thick, light and fluffy and made with ricotta the millennium on tulip umbrellas. A Parmesan cheese, topped with a soft-caramel banana and a risotto ($11) arrived as a Dead Sea of rice, sharply host of whipped Chantilly cream and almonds. herbed.

It was richly decadent without being cloying, But most of these dishes have since rotated and without particular excess. Not to mention out while standbys are developing, including that for a small child who happened to be in tow, a tender sous vide octopus salad served with the server presciently offered to split the top- chorizo ($12). pings and offer fresh maple syrup…just in case.

In some ways it feels as if the evening service (The kid was eventually convinced that whipped is still struggling to find its identity. By comparicream and bananas are a good thing.) son, the brunch seems to have started fresh in a A veggie omelette ($9) was f luffed in the wide-open field; you can almost feel the sun on French style, and stuffed not overfull with crim- your cheeks while eating. The evening menu, ini mushrooms, goat cheese and watercress, however, needs to air out a bit. achieving a quality that few omelettes do: understatement and balance. The most welcome dish, Eat: Verdigris, 1315 NE Fremont St., 477-8106, verdigrisrestaurant.com. 5-10 pm Wednesdayhowever, was a tender maple-smoked trout ($11) Saturday, 5-9 pm Sunday, brunch 9 am-2:30 pm with frisee, horseradish, hard-cooked egg just at Saturday-Sunday.

FRENCH-ACCENTED VERDIGRIS SERVES SOME TERRIFIC BRUNCH, BUT DINNER IS A WORK IN PROGRESS.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

35

36

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

MUSIC

feb. 11–17 profile

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

N ateesh P odolske

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

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.

Wednesday, Feb. 11 The Floozies, Manic Focus

[F-FUNK] George Clinton would probably go to a Floozies show. He’d be right there in the front of whatever mega-venue they’re playing, his head lolling through the molly-dusted air, watching two Midwesterners get funked up with live guitar and drums.

The freshly dropped Do Your Thing certainly brings the funk, but it lacks something Clinton would eventually notice: soul. The giggling masses may wink and jive over the Anchorman samples and stock keyboard sounds, but when the festival’s over, there’s nothing of any resonance to tether your now-dipping serotonin levels to as they plumb the depths of the EDM void. MITCH LILLIE. Branx, 320 SE 2nd Ave., 234-5683. 9 pm. $12. 21+.

Dr. Dog, Hanni El Khatib

[MODERN AM GOLD] Dr. Dog would’ve been fine as the CMJ circuit’s pre-eminent band of Beatles impersonators. But time and ambition took their inevitable hold, and brought the band ever-so-slightly off the staid path of Fab Four send-ups and onto the wellworn highway of classic Americana.

The higher fidelity of 2012’s Be the Void stands in sharp contrast to the fuzzy AM radio static draped over the groups earlier work like a beloved, threadbare blanket, but it’s the upgrade in production that’s ultimately allowed the Philadelphia six-piece’s arrangements to pack crowd pleasers like “Shadow People” and “Lonesome” with an anthemic ramble that has lifted Dr. Dog to the indie big leagues.

PETE COTTELL. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 9 pm. $25 advance, $28 day of show. All ages.

Dengue Fever, PigWar, Hong Kong Banana

[CAMBODIA ROCKS] The odd confluence of culture that works to propel Dengue Fever, a Los Angeles group trucking in Southeast Asia’s funky back catalog, shouldn’t have enabled a group of players to forge a career that’s getting into its second decade.

Over the course of five albums, including ethereal works like “Sleepwalking Through the Mekong” on Escape From Dragon House, the band displays an uncanny range of abilities. On the recent The Deepest Lake, Dengue Fever veers into territory that’s more obviously influenced by Western R&B, while still maintaining that distinct air of Cambodian psychedelia.

DAVE CANTOR. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 8 pm. $14 advance, $16 day of show. 21+.

Swahili, Phone Call, Dual Mode

[AMBIENT BEATS] Portlandtransplanted Reno natives Swahili have taken a pop turn, bridging the gap from their earlier ambient electronic releases to more a melodic, pulsing sound. The move carves them an interesting niche in the Portland scene— not quite ambient, not entirely dance music—as they explore soundscapes over chilled-out ’70s grooves with a tassel-free grace. Swahili’s sophomore record, Amovrevx, comes out on Seattle’s Translinguistic Other Records in mid-March, and should push the band toward a broader audience, but such a graceful change of pace means old fans won’t feel alienated, either.

PARKER HALL. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $7. 21+.

Thursday, Feb. 12 Jucifer, Holy Grove, Prizehog

[SLUDGE POP] It’s hard to imagine a more romantic heavy-metal lifestyle than the one enjoyed by Jucifer.

The wife-and-husband duo has been rocking its own blackened genre pileup since 1993. In 2001, baritone guitarist-vocalist Gazelle Amber Valentine and drummer Edgar Livengood moved permanently into their motor home, and have spent the remaining years on tour. Jucifer’s sixth studio album is spelled with Cyrillic characters that give my word processor an aneurysm, but this latest opus came out on Alternative Tentacles, the latest coup in a career that has involved a stint on Relapse and flirtation with the majors.

Combined with the musical love affair and commitment to the endless road, Jucifer delivers a stage show that is part Manowar, part Spinal Tap. It has to be seen to be believed. NATHAN CARSON. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

Kris Orlowski, Balto, Winterhaven

[PEP ROCK] Seattle’s Kris Orlowski has been making the rounds in the Pacific Northwest for going on five years, which is surprising, considering he only has a single full-length to his name. But his collection of EPs only hinted at the direction he would take with Believer, one devoid of the lush orchestrations and folky fervor of his early material. The album is imbued with Coldplay-esque elation, from the ringing pop-rock choruses and big lead riffs to the twee sentiments of hope, each buoyed with a swirling constellation of electronic touches and Orlowski’s gruff baritone. Sadly, throwback acoustic cuts like “Carolina” are in short supply. BRANDON WIDDER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.

Havania Whaal, Bath Party, Ronnie Haines

[BROODGAZE] Havania Whaal, a local three-piece featuring a mandolin-toting frontwoman, brings a fresh perspective to the category of moody, dark shoegaze. Its latest release, Château De Chienne, is attractively vague, like all good dream pop; “Real Surreal” is the perfect song for the uninitiated to get a proper grasp of its brooding vibes. Surfy veterans Bath Party and Ronnie Haines’ new solo garage project open. COLETTE POMERLEAU. The Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729. 8 pm. $5. 21+.

Friday, Feb. 13 Hozier, Ásgeir

[RUSTIC SOUL] While it’s easy to bask in the warm glow of Sam Smith and the Black Keys individually these days, why not embrace an artist who evokes both? Andrew Hozier-Byrne, aka Hozier, is a music-school dropout and onetime orchestra singer. You probably know him from his catchy single “Take Me to Church,” a compelling fusion of brazen blues, folk rock and Motown. But Hozier’s entire catalog is enriched by his R&B- and soul-infused vocals and bluesy, often dark, guitar portraits. Tracks such as “To Be Alone” show his near-religious side, with a much more humid, muddy sound than you’d expect to hear coming out of Northern Europe. The Irishman has one self-titled LP to his name, but it’s a weighty one. He credits a small-town upbringing, combined with lots of free time to absorb seminal artists such as John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone and

cont. on page 38

oN THE RUN DIVERS made one of the best albums of 2015 so far. so what now?

BY MATTHEW SIN GER

msinger@wweek.com

Earlier this month, at a house show in Northeast Portland, Divers opened with a song that doesn’t yet have an ending. That might be common practice among jam bands, but not for dudes playing scruffy, anthemic punk rock. It’s not as if the group is so young it’s forced to fill sets with unfinished material. To the contrary, the quartet is about to release its full-length debut, Hello Hello, an album in the making for practically all of its 4½-year existence.

But now that it’s done, the band members are getting back to basics—which, for them, means going onstage and seeing what happens.

“When you play an unfinished song live, it’s obvious where the problems are,” says singerguitarist Harrison Rapp, huddled with his bandmates around a table at a Mexican restaurant on Northeast Killingsworth Street. “You feel it in the room. Everyone else is in the band, too. They just don’t know it.”

Well, whatever works. And judging by Hello Hello, the crowdsourcing method works well for Divers. At a time when the cultural tides are receding from rock ’n’ roll, Divers has made the kind of record that used to inspire bored kids in dead-end towns to pick up guitars and scream their way out, full of shout-along choruses, bleeding-heart melodies and songs about locking arms and charging into the dying light of the world. It’s the stuff of Springsteen, played like the Replacements and recorded with the sweaty urgency of a band that came up through basement shows and generator parties in the desert outside Las Vegas, where Rapp, his guitarist brother Seth and drummer Colby Hulsey grew up. If Sleater-Kinney made the first great Portland album of 2015, Hello Hello is the second. And it was in the works for nearly as long, even though it plays with the immediacy of a record written and recorded yesterday.

You’d think guys who have no problem showing half-completed songs to the public really would churn out an album in a single afternoon. And to

FROM LEFT: Divers’ James Deegan, Colby Hulsey, Harrison Rapp and Seth Rapp.

a degree, that is how Divers operates. It’s basically their origin story: A year after the end of their previous project, the Rapps and Hulsey reconvened on a whim to open a show at bassist James Deegan’s house. “We were like, ‘Let’s see if we can write five or six songs in two weeks,’” Harrison Rapp says.

“We never quit doing it.” So it’s not that the band members are precious about their writing process— they’re just heavy editors. “We’re perfectionists in the long run,” Rapp says. “But the process starts way somewhere else.”

In 2012, Divers introduced itself with a twosong 7-inch. Almost right afterward, it began working up the 10 tracks that make up Hello Hello. With the Occupy movement still ongoing at the time, Harrison Rapp found himself reflecting on one of his childhood preoccupations: classic American outlaws such as John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde. Although he didn’t intend to give the album a narrative, much of Hello Hello is sung from the perspective of two bank robbers on the run. Rapp’s voice shakes with rasped desperation on anthems like “Lacuna” and “Breathless,” as if he’s the one being chased, the roaring guitars acting as his getaway vehicle. Despite the years of labor that went into it, the album captures the visceral energy of Divers’ live show. “The initial thing was to be sloppy and just let everything out,” Rapp says. “The flipside of that was, what we were actually going to keep, we were very meticulous about.”

After setbacks unrelated to creative fussiness— a bad mastering job, delays at the vinyl pressing plant—Hello Hello is finally coming out, as a split release from Olympia’s Rumbletowne and Portland’s Party Damage Records. The band is now in the unfamiliar position of being “between albums.”

It’s hoping to increase productivity, which is why it’s returning to the old days of road-testing works still in progress. But switching gears­—from endless refinement to creative free-for-all—isn’t easy.

“The initial thing was not giving a shit and just writing a ton of songs,” Rapp says. “We have to get back into that mode, which is a real switch once you get into that nit-picky thing. It can be hard to change back. That’s kind of where we’re at now.”

Deegan puts it another way: “You’ve got to get a turd to polish first.”

SEE IT: Divers plays High Water Mark Lounge, 6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., with Pageripper, Marriage + Cancer and Thin Coat, on Sunday, Feb. 15. 8 pm. $5. 21+.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

37

MUSIC

friday–saturday track for every acceptable summer activity: drinking at the river, watching the sunset on the coast, walking to get poutine after too many IPAs. The rest of the record—including “It’s On,” recognizable from the end credits of a Girls episode—lives up to the hype, offering crunchy sunburst punk tunes that are both sloppy and immaculately crafted.

Your flyover-state boredom ends here. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 894-9708.

10 pm. $10. 21+.

Tom Waits, who influence his sound.

Music hasn’t seen this kind of passionate, resonant, blues-according-to-a-choirboy styling since Jeff Buckley. MARK STOCK. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 2250047. 9 pm. Sold out. All ages.

Animal Eyes, Fanno Creek, Fog Father

[TRIPPY POP] Former Alaskans Animal Eyes mix Menomena-like hooks with Animal Collective-like prog sensibilities, combined into tracks perfect for strolling blearyeyed and smiling down the street while bobbing your head to odd meters. The band hasn’t released new tracks since 2013’s Ursus EP, but it has grown much tighter in that time. Joined by local folk upand-comers Fanno Creek and dreamy beach-rockers Fog Father, this is a local bill that will take you to three distinct places, each well worth the trip. PARKER HALL. Spare Room, 4830 NE 42nd Ave., 503-2875800. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

Sir Mix-a-Lot, Smoochknob, Love Bomb Go-Go

[‘CONDA-MAXIMUM] Somehow, I doubt Sir Mix-a-Lot regrets writing “Baby Got Back.” Its enduring popularity (mostly among fans of ironic karaoke, but still) has kept the 51-year-old Seattle rapper and producer in public consciousness going on a quarter-century now, nevermind allowed him to continue eating. And with the zeitgeist’s current preoccupation with outsized posteriors, Mix is ensured an even longer run. But much like the big butts he loves so dear, “Baby Got Back” casts a rather large shadow, eclipsing his other, more artistically legitimate accomplishments— most notably his earlier single, 1988’s “Posse On Broadway,” which, in terms of defining of an era of Seattle music, is every bit as crucial as, say, “Touch Me I’m Sick.” If Mix ever feels any existential angst over his place in the cultural, he probably soothes himself by looking at his royalty checks. I just hope he

[RADIO LOW END] OK, fine, I get it: You hate “All About That Bass.”

Ubiquity can do that to a song, especially when something is both retro and squeaky-clean but still painfully trying to be hip. But let’s all overlook our differences for a moment, huddle together, and recognize that one of the biggest singles of 2014 is more than just an empowerment anthem: It’s a pure master class in pop songwriting, a doo-wop #tbt wrapped in a meme wrapped in that cycle when a song goes from annoying to tolerable to awesome when you’ve heard it approximately 1,000 times.

Trainor, 21, supposedly wrote the song with songwriter and producer Kevin Kadish in 40 minutes, and it has the touch of genius that doesn’t feel too overwrought. Unfortunately, the rest of Trainor’s debut record, Title, is more generic, though her voice is strong enough to push numbers like “Close Your Eyes” and “3AM” to respectability. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 10 pm.

Sold out. All ages.

Saturday, Feb. 14 Smokey Robinson with the Oregon Symphony

[THE CUPID OF SOUL] If you care at all about American popular music, then the Smokey Robinson songbook is required listening. A simple list of the classics he either performed or penned is enough to illustrate his importance: “Tears of a Clown,” “I Second That Emotion,” “Shop Around,” “The Tracks of My Tears,” “My Girl,” “Cruisin’” and on and on. He was Motown’s smoothest voice (and that’s saying something) and up there as one of its sharpest writers. He’s never had Marvin’s conflicted conscience or Stevie’s expansive musical vision, but he’s figured out more poetic ways to express love and heartbreak than just about any other songwriter alive. And he’s playing Portland on St. Valentine’s Day? Backed by the symphony? Talk about #blessed. MATTHEW SINGER. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm. $35-$97. All ages.

Broncho, Psychomagic, Daisy Death

[SUMMER’S LIFE] Oklahoma isn’t really a hotbed for indie rock. But like most middle-sized college towns, Norman isn’t all meatheads and keg stands at the Delta house, either. Garage punk trio Broncho are here to prove once and for all that some of the catchiest, most life-affirming, crush-that-beer-canand-sing-along pop music can come out of a basement anywhere in the country, as long as songs like “Class Historian” exist in the world. The second track on the band’s scintillating sophomore record, Just Enough Hip to Be Woman, “Class Historian” is aural magic, the perfect sound-

38

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

savannah mark

Meghan Trainor

gets the joke of Sir Mix-a-Lot headlining a Valentine’s Day concert, and is cool being, well, the butt.

MATTHEW SINGER. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 345-7892. 9 pm. $20 advance, $60 couples package. 21+.

Cover Your Hearts: A Night of Guilty Pleasure Love Songs

[COVERING FOR A CAUSE] Oldschool Portland shoegazers Champarticles started this annual benefit show in the dark ages of 2008, back when music fans actually had “guilty pleasures.”

Examples from the past include “Hot Blooded,” “I Wanna Sex You Up” and “Girls, Girls, Girls,” which leads one to believe “guilty pleasure” actually means “ironic.” Either way, the event benefits UseMusic, which allows artists to donate proceeds directly to a charity of their choice, so it’s worth attention.

Performers include the My Oh Mys, Bryan Free, Young Vienna and PDX Speedwagon, featuring members of Champarticles. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $17 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.

Verified: Brenmar, Gangsigns, DVST, Drexler, Quarry

[WHAT CLUB] New York club producer Brenmar’s biggest come-up has occurred in the past two years, as he’s ridden the coattails of his clever remixes—think “Drunk in Love” sampled alongside “Swimming Pools (Drank)”—to fame at festival stages and beyond.

January saw him drop his Award EP, which for him represents his

Introducing MOON BY YOU Who: Sarah Kue (vocals), Jake Enger (guitar), Tyler Verigin (drums), Kevin Clark (keyboards) and Austin Smith (bass).

Sounds like: The party you’d never turn down an invitation to.

For fans of: The Black Keys, the Kinks, Jackie Wilson, Jefferson Airplane, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, Young Jessie.

One of Moon by You’s main priorities as a band is cultivating a sense of community, and that’s evident just by observing the members all together in the same room. Four of them live in the same house, which they call the Moon Base. It’s an imaginatively decorated place, embellished by kaleidoscopic tapestries, plants and a rainbow canopy parachute that hangs from the ceiling in the basement practice space. The band frequently hosts shows here, opening the door to whoever wants to join in. The idea is to “create the scene, not seek it out,” according to frontwoman Sarah Kue. This is the kind of environment Kue hoped to immerse herself in when she moved to Portland from Chicago in 2010. Within her first few days in town, she began collaborating with drummer Tyler Verigin, busking up and down the West Coast as a duo.

Eventually, Jake Enger, Kevin Clark and Austin Smith joined, and the band decided to move on from its freak-folk roots toward the more full-bodied sound showcased on its new three-song 7-inch.

Recorded in Olympia, Wash., with K Records’ Calvin Johnson, the record features a hypnotic mix of soul, psychedelic pop and straight-up rock ’n’ roll. The head-turner is “Got My People,” the love child of a charming gospel song and sassy pop hit, underscored by Kue’s soulful vocals.

In discussing the band’s evolution, the members of Moon

by You say “it just kind of happened,” without much planning, which is going to occur when there’s little distinction between playing together and living together. Kue, Verigin and Clark practice every day, and are constantly writing new songs. And, as always, the door to the Moon Base remains open, and everyone is welcome. COLETTE POMERLEAU. SEE IT: Moon by You plays Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., with Is/ Is and Appendixes, on Sunday, Feb. 15. 8:30 pm. Free. 21+.

MUSIC

COURTESY OF WME E N T E R TA I N M E N T

SATURDAY–MONDAY

SMOOTHEST OPERATOR: Smokey Robinson plays Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Saturday, Feb. 14.

longest release in three years. The collaborators’ verses are on point, but with Dougie F and UNiiQU3 involved, clubbers expect more than just boiled-down horns and a pan-club beat. Those remixes are also on point, but cook yourself down too far on originals, and you’re burnt to the bottom of the hyper-sexualized Fool’s Gold Records pan while Flosstradamus turns up the crowds. MITCH LILLIE. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

Ural Thomas & the Pain (featuring Nick Waterhouse), the Newrotics (DJ set)

[PORTLAND SOUL] Can’t afford to take your Valentine to see Smokey Robinson? Then why not go see Portland’s homegrown soul man at a place the size of the Schnitz’s orchestra pit instead? It’s not a bad consolation, considering Ural Thomas & the Pain are going to be releasing an album in the next few months, and especially because retro-minded L.A. songwriter Nick Waterhouse, who’s producing the record, is going to be sitting in with them tonight. Pro tip: Get tickets, like, yesterday. Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., 236-4536. 9 pm. $10 advance, $14 day of show.

21+.

lucky for us, is playing from its entire catalog. CRIS LANKENAU. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 8 pm. $18. 21+.

Grand Lake Islands, Future Historians, Jackson Boone

[STONED FOLK] Erik Emanuelson’s rich, pastoral folk isn’t the kind of music you would expect wafting out of a New York apartment complex—perhaps that’s why the former teacher moved to Portland in the first place. The outstanding Song From Far, his sophomore effort, lingers with lo-fi melancholia and drifting electric guitar that recall the late Jason Molina in his prime. The ambience is interrupted by expansive Southern-fried guitar and organ, with Emanuelson’s laconic lyrics uttered atop it all with a fragility best reserved for the moody folk he creates alongside his three bandmates. The fact the album was recorded in a basement only adds to its sullen nature.

BRANDON WIDDER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 8 pm. $7. 21+.

Ben Howard, Willy Mason

[TWANGIN’ 2GETHER] Country love songs are the best love songs, because they usually involve whiskey, stolen trucks, bar fights and a lot of glorious making up.

Tonight, local luminaries such as Lewi Longmire, Anita Lee Elliott, Carra Stasney, Bryan Wiese and Pete Krebs’ new Earnest Lovers project sing dusty duets both new and old. Secret Society Lounge, 116 NE Russell St., 493-3600. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 for single ticket and $20 for a pair day of show. 21+.

[SINGER-SONGWRITER] Ben Howard’s songs have always been waterlike, full of soft, finger-picked acoustic melodies that flow gently through whispery vocals, lightly lilting strings and billowing gang vocals. But on his most recent release, last year’s I Forget Where We Were, the U.K. singer-songwriter ditches the calm float down the river for a dark and ominous storm, complete with rolling waves of echoing reverb, currents of cello and dangerous drumbeats. But the electrified darkness never quite overshadows the flecks of brightness Howard thoughtfully adds in with his folksy, finger-picked melodies, and his newly assured vocals keep things afloat. KAITIE TODD. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 8 pm. Sold out. All ages.

SUNDAY, FEB. 15

MONDAY, FEB. 16

Hearts on Fire: A Night of Country Duets

Cursive, Beach Slang, Slow Bird

[EMO STALWARTS] Staples of Omaha’s Saddle Creek Records, Cursive has added new layers to an already eclectic bag of emotive, soft-yet-screamy repertoire on its recent records, though they don’t have the impact of the band’s earlier work. Tim Kasher’s introspection has never shied away from self-criticism, so he’s likely the first to admit a misstep. So the band is returning to the old stuff: Cursive has given 2003 breakthrough album The Ugly Organ deluxe reissue treatment, is touring with string accompaniment and,

Hundred Waters

[UNPREDICTABLE INDIE] Hundred Waters’ latest release, The Moon Rang Like a Bell, managed to turn heads last year with its vision— the album feels like it spans worlds and lifetimes in all of its genreblending, crescendo scope. From the dying moments of the album’s opener, a gentle a cappella number called “Show Me Love,” to the elaborate, billowing keys on “Out Alee,” the Florida quartet crafts densely intricate, electronic-based soundscapes that meld perfectly with singer Nicole Miglis’ delicate alto.

CONT. on page 40 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

39

MUSIC

monday–tuesday

the pairing of bold sound and soft vocals combines to create an otherworldly haziness that’s occasionally dark but, more often than not, oddly comforting. KAItIE toDD. Branx, 320 SE 2nd Ave., 234-5683.

8 pm. $12. 21+.

Jessica Lea Mayfield

[GEttInG LoUDER] ohio’s Jessica Lea Mayfield spent the years leading up to 2014’s Make My Head Sing writing moody roots music imbued with the production touch of the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. With her last album, though, Mayfield went into the studio without Auerbach and turned out a record revealing her longtime Dave Grohl obsession, shifting toward more explicitly rock songwriting. She’ll be back in town next month, dueting with Seth Avett of the Avett Brothers on a set of Elliott Smith songs from their upcoming collaborative tribute album, so expect tonight to be turned up by comparison. MAttHEW SInGER. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 894-9708. 10 pm. $12. 21+.

Motion City Soundtrack, William Beckett, Brick and Mortor

[oLD EMo] Motion city Soundtrack’s angsty emo classic Commit This to Memory came out 10 years ago. If you were a fan of this album in your high-school years, you probably remember singer-guitarist Justin Pierre’s crazy hair, watching Steven’s Untitled Rock Show on Fuse, and a whole different world of emo music. Well, the cheerleader you had a crush on now has four kids and is going through a messy divorce, and Fuse makes Youtube documentaries on Juggalos.

But even if you haven’t put on a Motion city Soundtrack record in years and photos of yourself from the era scare the shit out of you, the band will be playing that honest, heart-wrenching record in full here, and chances are, it’ll sound just the way you remember. LUcAS cHEMottI. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE Cesar E. Chavez Blvd., 233-7100.

8:30 pm. $13. 21+.

TUESDAY, FEB. 17 Sonny & the Sunsets, Colleen Green, Larry Yes

[BUStED BEAcH PoP] For a man known to consistently reinvent his sound, Sonny Smith finally seems to have caught onto something with his latest, Talent Night at the Ashram, effortlessly blending psych, surf rock, garage and pop.

Burger Records babe colleen Green opens with her fuzzy lullabies. coLEttE PoMERLEAU. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $12. 21+.

St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Sean Rowe

[oLD SoULS] Maybe it’s fitting that Alabama’s St. Paul and the Broken Bones are being taken to the masses by the soundtrack to The Gambler, a Mark Wahlberg vehicle pried from an original film dating to 1974, as the band would ’ve fit into that era easily. copping golden-age funk and soul moves from the JBs and their ilk, efforts like “that Glow,” which is featured in the film, come off dank and vaguely mel-

cont. on page 42

coURtESY oF too SLIM

PREVIEW

A Benefit for Too Slim [BLUES MEDICINE] Smokin’ Spokane slide guitarist Tim “Too Slim” Langford has led Too Slim and the Taildraggers through three award-winning decades as one of the Northwest’s favorite blues bands. If it seems Langford’s tail is dragging a little more than usual these days, it’s because he’s currently suffering from cancer. So, coming to his aid tonight is an all-star gathering of the local blues community, which has suffered too many hard losses of late. Local big blues man on campus, Curtis Salgado—a former Santana and Robert Cray Band vocalist who has earned many accolades, and a cancer survivor himself in recent years—leads an all-star jam to headline the benefit. Sonny Hess, part of a Women in Blues collective on the bill, also kicked cancer’s ass in recent years, in keeping with her kick-ass guitar chops. Among the many other Portland blues stalwarts helping out Langford tonight are DK Stewart, Lloyd Jones, Norman Sylvester, a 13-piece big-band reunion of Pin and the Hornits, and an acoustic trio featuring Mary Flower, Joe McMurrian and Terry Robb. JEFF ROSENBERG. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 5 pm Sunday, Feb. 15. $15 advance, $18 day of show. 21+.

40

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

MUSIC MILLENNIUM WELCOMES THE PORTLAND JAZZ FESTIVAL, February 17-March 1st. For information on all performances, visit portlandjazzfestival.org.

VIJAY IYER TRIO

BEBEL GILBERTO TUDO

Sale Priced At $11.99

Bebel Gilberto will be performing at the Newmark Theatre Wednesday, February 18th at 7:00PM. Meet Bebel Gilberto at the Music Millennium booth immediately following the performance!

Multi-Grammy® award-nominated vocalist Bebel Gilberto may have been born in New York City, but her Brazilian heritage is strongly rooted in her musical education during her childhood in Brazil. She was exposed to all types of Brazilian musical styles through her father, acclaimed singer/guitarist Jo ão Gilberto, her uncle, Chico Buarque, and family friends like Milton Nacimento, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Caetano Veloso, and João Donato.

SOMI

THE LAGOS MUSIC SALON

Sale Priced At $11.99 Somi will be performing at the Newmark Theatre Wednesday, February 18th at 7:00PM. Meet Somi at the Music Millennium booth immediately following the performance!

BREAK STUFF Sale priced At $14.99*

Acclaimed East African vocalist & songwriter Somi weaves jazz and African music into her socially-conscious and deeply poetic body of work that The New York Times hails as “both serious and seductive.” Her new album “The Lagos Music Salon” (Sony Music/OKeh) is inspired by an 18-month sabbatical in Lagos, Nigeria. The album, which debuted at #1 on US Jazz Charts, features special guests Angelique Kidjo, Common, and Ambrose Akinmusire.

The Vijay Iyer Trio will be performing at the Winningstad Theatre Friday, February 20th at 9:30PM.

BILLY CHILDS

Meet the group at the Music Millennium booth immediately following the performance!

Grammy® nominated pianist and composer Vijay Iyer has an impressive list of accomplishments. For openers In 2012 he won Jazz Artist of the Year, Pianist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year, Jazz Group of the Year, and Rising Star Composer in DownBeat’s Critics Poll. Iyer now a professor of music at Harvard University, recently became an ECM artist recording classical and jazz trio albums. Iyer presented his Indian fusion trio Tirtha at the 2012 Festival, and will debut his longstanding trio featuring Stephan Crumb and Marcus Gilmore.

MAP TO THE TREASURE: REIMAGINING LAURA NYRO Sale Priced At $11.99

Billy Childs will be performing with accompaniment from Becca Stevens at the Newmark Theatre Sunday, February 22th at 7:00PM. Meet Billy Childs at the Music Millennium booth immediately following the performance!

Billy Childs picked up the piano at age 6 and never looked back. Heavily influenced by Herbie Hancock and mentored by Freddie Hubbard, he has gone on to compose multiple works for orchestras and groups around the country. Over Childs’ career he has amassed 10 Grammy nominations and 3 Grammy awards.

His most recent album reimagines the music of pop iconoclast Laura Nyro.

LUCKY PETERSON

SAVE 20% OFF ALL OJC TITLES BY THESE ARTISTS: SON OF A BLUESMAN Sale Priced At $14.99*

Bill Evans

Miles Davis

Shelly Mann

Art Pepper

Eric Dolphy

Charles Mingus

Lucky Peterson will be performing at the Aladdin Theater Sunday, March 1st at 7:00PM Meet Lucky at the Music Millennium booth immediately following the performance!

Joe Pass

Duke Ellington

Thelonious Monk

Cannonball Adderley

Red Garland

Wes Montgomery

Gene Ammons

Vince Guaraldi

Sonny Rollins

Kenny Burrell

Hampton Hawes

Mal Waldron

John Coltrane

Wynton Kelly

& Many More.

Lucky Peterson is the most dangerous triple threat working in the blues. He has gained a reputation as one of the most preeminent performers of the modern era as a searing lead guitarist, fantastic organist, and first-rate vocalist. His many talents are truly mind-boggling. As a young kid he was immersed in the culture of blues and jazz because his father owned a small club where every local and visiting musician would come to play. Lucky found himself quickly picking up the art form and was a child prodigy on guitar. His most recent release “Son of a Bluesman” echoes his experiences as a kid and further reinforce Lucky’s everlasting presence in the blues. Given his nearly exclusive European performance schedule, we are fortunate to present him on the Festival for the first time.

REGULARLY $11.99, SALE PRICED AT $9.59

SALE PRICES IN STORE ONLY, THROUGH MARCH 11TH, 2015

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

41

MUSIC

TUESDAY/CLASSICAL, ETC.

ancholy, with Paul Janeway’s soulshout serving at the anchor. DAVE CANTOR. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 8 pm. Sold out. 21+.

CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Third Angle New Music

[MOZART MASHUP] Imprisoning new and old classical music in silos does neither any favors. Programs that combine classic and contemporary works bring new audiences to each, keep classical music from turning into a musty antiquities museum, and reveal the continuity between past and present music. That connection is clear in American composer-guitarist Steven Mackey’s sparkling fl ute quartet Humble River, whose movements he designed to be interwoven between movements of the pieces that inspired it: Mozart’s cheery pieces for the same instruments, written a couple centuries earlier. That’s how they’ll be performed by the four Oregon Symphony musicians in the latest hourlong, intermission-free concert in Third Angle’s innovative Studio Series. BRETT CAMPBELL. Zoomtopia, 810 SE Belmont St., zoomtopia.com. 7:30 pm ThursdayFriday, Feb. 12-13. $10 students, $20 seniors, $25 general admission. 21+.

Portland Baroque Orchestra

[INAUTHENTIC MOZART] Portland Baroque Orchestra sometimes ventures beyond its core mid18th-century repertoire to explore music of the later Classical period.

There’s no lovelier example of that era’s chamber music than Mozart’s sublime 1789 Clarinet Quintet. It’s usually performed these days on a modern instrument that can’t reach the score’s lower notes, requiring transposition. But in keeping with PBO’s authentic approach, guest soloist Erich Hoeprich, the world ’s most famous historically informed clarinetist, will play it on the wider range basset clarinet (the one with the big ears) that Mozart wrote it for, giving us the rare opportunity to hear this masterpiece in all its low-range richness. PBO music director and violinist Monica Huggett will also lead a non-authentic arrangement made years after Mozart’s death for string sextet of another of his masterpieces: his glorious Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola .

BRETT CAMPBELL. 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 13 at First Baptist Church, 909 SW 11th Ave. 3 pm Sunday, Feb. 15 at Kaul Auditorium at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. $20-$63.

All ages.

Northwest Horn Orchestra

[BRASS TACKS] Twenty French horn players walk into a bar…after their annual extravaganza at the Old Church, that is. Once a year, the fi nest horn players in the land assemble to create the Northwest Horn Orchestra. With a sound that recalls the horn-heavy Lord of the Rings soundtrack, the group shapes rearranged classical, jazz and rock music into heart-throbbing, brassladen epics. Accompanied by varied classical and pop rhythm sections, the group derives its success largely from turning a would-be black-tie event into a lighthearted way to spend the night, keeping Portland thoroughly weird. BRETT CAMPBELL. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 2222031. 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 13. $12 students and seniors, $17 general admission. All ages.

New West Guitar Group

[GROOVY GUITARS] Although New West Guitar Group is based in L.A., two of its members studied with Portland guitar and jazz legend Dan Balmer, so it’s appropriate that they’ll be opening for his group here. The young trio, which just released its fi fth album, will play originals and trio arrangements of classic jazz (“Blue Rondo à la Turk”), pop (“Wichita Lineman”)

42

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

and more. BRETT CAMPBELL. Jimmy Mak’s, 221 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542. 6:30 pm Monday, Feb. 16. $10. Under 21 permitted until 9:30 pm.

Nordic Voices

[MEDIEVAL TO MODERN CHORAL] For nearly two decades, Nordic Voices has been redefi ning the role of the a cappella vocal ensemble.

Most internationally touring small choirs focus mainly on one era of music, but the Norwegian sextet sings everything from medieval plainchant to contemporary pieces commissioned from today’s composers. It eagerly includes modern touches like video art, sampling, amplifi cation and other electronic

augmentation. In this Friends of Chamber Music concert, it’ll mix music by Renaissance composers Luca Marenzio and Clément Janequin with sounds by 20thcentury masters György Ligeti and Maurice Ravel and 21st-century Norwegian composers. BRETT CAMPBELL. St. Philip Neri Church, 2408 SE 16th Ave., 764-7525. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 17. $30-$47. All ages.

For more Music listings, visit

ALBUM REVIEWS

ALIALUJAH CHOIR BIG PICTURE SHOW (WOODPHONE) [FURTHER FOLK] Sequencing an album is a tougher and more important task than it seems. You often want to open with a bang—a song that immediately hooks the listener. On the other hand, no one wants to peak too early.

Although a solid overall release, Big Picture Show, the sophomore album from Portland folk supergroup Alialujah Choir, loads its best songs up front.

“From the Ground Up” opens the album with breezy acoustic guitar before swelling with spare piano chords and appropriately choirlike harmonies. The hushed quaintness of “Tell Me” and the budding aspirations lining “Building a Nation” follow, each bathed in a soft acoustic glow that owes as much to candid calland-response as the driving, velvety bass.

Other moments, though more unassuming, provide subtle touches that ties the group’s folk-fueled past together. The picturesque outro of “Idle Days,” with its warm brass section and ascending strings, is one example, the nearly inaudible guitar chords and slinking organ of “Part of Me” another. The makeup of the Portland outfit, which includes members of Weinland and Norfolk & Western, is the same as it was on its debut, but the added instrumentation allows the album to shine with an expanded sound closer to what you’d expect from its name: something that’s truly a culmination of all the individual parts. BRANDON WIDDER. SEE IT: Alialujah Choir plays Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., No. 110, with Wild Ones, on Thursday, Feb. 12. 8 pm. $15. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

GRAND LAKE ISLANDS SONG FROM FAR (GOOD MOUNTAIN) [R ATTLED FOLK] Song From Far begins exactly as that: a quiet cacophony of atmospheric rustling that sounds like faraway spirits tuning their collective voice. Very soon, the drifting experimentalism gives way to rich instrumentation, and the opening title track finds its folky stride. Such is the dichotomy at play with local quartet Grand Lake Islands, at once hazy and celestial as well as grounded in an ironclad folk-rock tradition.

Part of the haze is owed to frontman Erik Emanuelson’s quaking vocals. He’s a low-def Jim James—scratchy, distant and unpredictable. Emanuelson brought the makings of his first EP with him when he moved from New York in 2012 and built the band around it. Song From Far is Grand Lake Island’s first full-length, created entirely in Portland. On “Warm Keeping,” he reflects on the journey: “In the East/You’re always dreaming about the Wild West.”

Abetted by the song’s soft shuffle, Emanuelson sounds pensive, nervous even. Ghosts—of past relationships, of cities once lived in—quite literally haunt the album, whether through foggy pedal steel or splintery vocals weaving in and out of rootsy melodies.

That’s nothing new, of course: Countless bands play through such things. What’s great about Song From Far is that you don’t get just the neatly packaged retrospection: You get to experience the whole coping process. MARK STOCK. SEE IT: Grand Lake Islands plays Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., with Future Historians and Jackson Boone, on Sunday, Feb. 15. 8 pm. $7. 21+.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

43

MUSIC CALENDAR

[FEB. 11-17] The Secret Society

= ww Pick. Highly recommended.

Editor: Mitch Lillie. TO HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, send show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/submitevents. 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.

116 NE Russell St. Jacob Miller and the Bridge City Crooners, Boy & Bean

The Spare Room

For more listings, check out wweek.com.

4830 NE 42nd Ave Bahttsi

LAST WEEK LIVE

white eagle Saloon

M AT T S I N g E R

836 N Russell St. Pet Lovers Valentine, Diana Chittester

FRi. Feb. 13 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Mimi Naja (of Fruition)

Ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. The Famous Mysterious Actor Show

bunk bar

1028 SE Water Ave. Israel Nash, The Wild Reeds

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd.

The Herbal Crew, 541 Syndicate, Lab Rabbits, Ron Rogers & the Wailing Wind

LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St. Cedar Teeth, Helena Cinema (9:30 pm); Joe McMurrian and Woodbrain (6 pm)

Mississippi Pizza Pub.

3552 N. Misssissippi Ave 2 by 2: An Evening of Duos and Duets

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Wild Child, Desert Noises

Sandy Hut

1430 NE Sandy Blvd.

Static and the Cubes, The Denizenz, Arthur Leon Adam III, Piss Test

Star Theater Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Mimi Naja (of Fruition)

Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. Celtic Fiddle Festival

Alhambra Theatre

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Spiritual Rez

Ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Public Bulimic Limited, Dwight Dickinson

branx

320 SE 2nd Ave. The Floozies, Manic Focus

bunk bar

1028 SE Water Ave. Waters

Crystal ballroom

1332 W Burnside Street Dr. Dog, Hanni El Khatib

dante’s

350 W Burnside St The Chicharones & Raashan Ahmad, with Haunted Spaceship, Joey Cyrus & The Getdown Crew

44

Hawthorne Theatre 1507 SE 39th Ave. Otep

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Thanks, Sara Jackson Holman, Fringe Class

Jade Lounge

2342 SE Ankeny St. The Famous Haydell Sisters Jaded Variety Show

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown B3 Organ Group

LaurelThirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Pretty Gritty and Promise the Moon (9 pm); Wilkinson Blades (6 pm)

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Swahili, Phone Call, Dual Mode

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

1430 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Generators, All Worked Up, Super Secret Surprise Guest

350 W Burnside St Jucifer, Holy Grove, Prizehog

white eagle Saloon

830 E Burnside St. Kris Orlowski, Balto, Winterhaven

836 N Russell St. Blue Evolution

THuRS. Feb. 12 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Mimi Naja (of Fruition)

Alberta Rose Theatre

3000 NE Alberta St. The Stray Birds, Cahalen Morrison & Eli West

Analog Cafe & Theater 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Scofflaw Soiree with Pink Lady & John Bennett Jazz Band

Ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. Intolerance, The London Victory Club, Black and Blonde

bunk bar

1028 SE Water Ave. Heavenly Beat

doug Fir Lounge

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Bones For Crows, The Big Bad Wolf, Order Of Apollo, Chainbound, Harken, Shades Below Zero

LaurelThirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. The Old Straight Track (9:30 pm); Lewi and the Left Coast Roasters

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Catfish and The Bottlemen

Sandy Hut

1430 NE Sandy Blvd.

Forcemeat, Uncool Niece, Fuzzy Dice, Hosmanek

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Havania Whaal, Bath Party, Ronnie Haines

Alhambra Theatre

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Love Your Artists: Lafa Taylor, The Hill Dogs, Device Grips, Yak Attack, Laura Ivancie

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Smokey Robinson with the Oregon Symphony

bunk bar

1028 SE Water Ave. Broncho, Psychomagic, Daisy Death

dante’s

3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Judy Collins

13 NW 6th Ave. All the Apparatus, Brownish Black and Guests

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Mammoth Salmon, Zmoke, Paranaut

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave. Northwest Horn Orchestra

The Secret Society

830 E Burnside St. Cover Your Hearts: A Night of Guilty-pleasure Love Songs, The My Oh Mys, Bryan Free, Young Vienna, PDX Speedwagon

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd.

The Lovely Lost, When We Met, Kool Stuff Katie

High water Mark

6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Felix Martin, Black Witch Pudding, Barishi, A Volcano

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Bobby Torres Ensemble, Guest Vocalist Sean Holmes & a Tribute to Joe Cocker

LaurelThirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. The Ridgerunners (9:30 pm); Water Tower (6 pm)

Rontoms

600 E. Burnside St. Ural Thomas & the Pain (featuring Nick Waterhouse), the Newrotics (DJ set)

Sandy Hut

1430 NE Sandy Blvd.

VD Massacre, The Mormon Trannys, Raw Dog and the Close Calls, Shitty Weekend, 86

Star Theater

13 NW 6th Ave. Bleeding Hearts Ball III, The Bleeding Hearts and The Satin Chaps

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Tiny Knives, Hooded Hags, Mall Castle

The Secret Society

LaurelThirst Public House

1332 W Burnside Street A Benefit to Too Slim Cancer Fund

dante’s

350 W Burnside St Sinferno Cabaret

doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Cursive, Beach Slang, Slow Bird

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave The Rhythm Renegades 1507 SE 39th Ave. Alestorm, Swashbuckle, Dread Crew of Oddwood 6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Divers, Pageripper, Thin Coat, Marriage and Cancer

Kaul Auditorium

SE 28th Ave. & Botsford Dr. Portland Baroque Orchestra

LaurelThirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Open Mic (9 pm); Freak Mountain Ramblers (6 pm)

Lincoln Performance Hall

1620 SW Park Ave. Think Lincoln Noon Concert Series: The Sylvia Smith Percussion Duo

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Grand Lake Islands, Future Historians, Jackson Boone

Rontoms

600 E. Burnside St. Moon By You

Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Ben Howard

Tualatin Presbyterian Church

9230 SW Siletz Dr, Tualatin Valley Symphony

Vie de boheme

1530 SE 7th Ave. Chuck Israels Jazz Cafe

blue diamond

128 NE Russell St. Meghan Trainor

wonder ballroom

128 NE Russell St. 5th Annual Portland Mardi Gras Ball

TueS. Feb. 17 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Niall Connolly

Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. Kate Voegele, Leroy Sanchez

Analog Cafe & Theater 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Hail The Sun, The Ongoing Concept, Brent Walsh, We The Wild, Without a Crown

blue diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

A.C. Porter and Special Guests, Blue Tuesday

Cadigan’s Corner bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Soul Provider, Naomi T

Clinton Street Theater

2522 SE Clinton St. 2nd Annual Clinton Street Fat Tuesday Celebration

dante’s

350 W Burnside St Grander Smith, Earl Dibbles Jr.

dixie Tavern

NS 3rd & Couch St. Fat Tuesday

doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Sonny & the Sunsets, Colleen Green, Larry Yes

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. August Burns Red, Miss May I, Northlane, Erra

LaurelThirst Public House

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

Delaney & Paris, Dwight Dickinson, Erik Anarchy, Jim Strange

white eagle Saloon

wonder ballroom

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

Cancerslug, The Brass, C.B.K., God Bless America

The Tonic Lounge

4260 SE Hawthorne Blvd Hot Club Time Machine & Guests

Al’s den

836 N Russell St. Dear Drummer, Born Cosmic

The Tonic Lounge

Jimmy Mak’s

12650 SW 5th Songs of The Heart Valentines Concert and Sing-Along 836 N Russell St. Ayron Jones and the Way, Rich Layton and the TroublemakersSoul Saturdays with DoveDriver,

2958 NE Glisan St. Kung Pao Chickens (9 pm); Copper and Coal (6 pm)

The Ranger Station PdX

The Spare Room

white eagle Saloon

Jimmy Mak’s

Crystal ballroom

225 SW Ash St. The Rusty Cleavers

116 NE Russell St. Lewi Longmire, Deani, The Earnest Lovers, Anita Margarita and the Rattlesnakes

unity of beaverton

1507 SE 39th Ave. Motion City Soundtrack, William Beckett (of The Academy Is...), Brick & Mortar

Ash Street Saloon

116 NE Russell St. The Blackberry Bushes, Wild Rabbit, Renegade String Band, Pete Krebs and his Portland Playboys 4830 NE 42nd Ave Animal Eyes, Fanno Creek

Hawthorne Theatre

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown Septet, The Dan Balmer Trio, New West Guitar Group

High water Mark

1507 SE 39th Ave. Big Smo, Haden Carpenter

830 E Burnside St. Dengue Fever With pigWar

Aladdin Theater

3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Ramble On (Led Zeppelin Tribute), Barracuda (Heart Tribute)

303 SW 12th Ave. Niall Connolly

doug Fir Lounge

Hawthorne Theatre

dante’s

Aladdin Theater

303 SW 12th Ave. Mimi Naja (of Fruition)

dante’s

830 E Burnside St. Milo Greene, Zella Day

Sandy Hut

Al’s den

1332 W Burnside Street Hozier, Asgeir

doug Fir Lounge

doug Fir Lounge

Al’s den

Hawthorne Theatre

350 W Burnside St Scott Biram & Jesse Dayton

wed. Feb. 11

Sun. Feb. 15

350 W Burnside St Sir Mix-a-Lot, Smoochknob, Love Bomb Go-Go

Crystal ballroom

DIG ME OUT: Who the hell kicks off a tour in Spokane? I’m pretty sure bands actually from Spokane don’t start their tours there, much less a band fans have been clamoring to see again for close to a decade. Yet, this is where Sleater-Kinney decided to play its first show in nine years—Feb. 8 at a chain concert venue, in the middle of a drab downtown that seemed to have gone to sleep an hour before Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss came onstage. Then again, for a group that’s made a point of never repeating itself, opening its second chapter in such modest fashion is right in line with how it’s always operated. Opening with “Price Tag” and “Fangless,” the bracing one-two punch that begins No Cities to Love, the message was clear: This is not a reunion, it’s a restart. But it’s also the Sleater-Kinney you remember: Tucker’s banshee wail can still peel paint off walls; Weiss still conjures the force of 1,000 stampeding mammoths behind the drum kit; Brownstein still high-kicks and windmills and brandishes her guitar like a medieval weapon. While the set list spanned the trio’s history, it was the newest songs that hit hardest. “No Cities to Love” spoke most to the moment—a reminder that it ain’t about where you’re from, or even where you’re at, it’s wherever the people you love are.

In May, it’ll be Portland. But on Sunday, that place was Spokane. MATTHEW SINGER. Read the full review at wweek.com/lastweeklive.

SAT. Feb. 14

white eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Rob Johnston, Bordertown

MOn. Feb. 16 303 SW 12th Ave. Niall Connolly 2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Hot Tea Cold

branx

320 SE 2nd Ave. Hundred Waters

dante’s

350 W Burnside St Karaoke From Hell, The English Language

221 NW 10th Ave. The Christopher Brown Quartet, Mel Brown Quartet

2958 NE Glisan St. Jack Grace, Lewi Longmire (9 pm); Jackstraw (6 pm)

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. The Mastersons, Aaron Lee Tasjan

St. Philip neri Church

2408 SE 16th Ave. Nordic Voices, presented

by Friends of Chamber Music

The GoodFoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. Boys II Gentlemen, Members of Quick and Easy Boys and Excellent Gentlemen

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Bobby Peru, Clarke & The Himselfs, Sh*tty Weekend, Cult Choir

wonder ballroom

128 NE Russell St. St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Sean Rowe

feb. 11–17

MUSIC CALENDAR jason quigley

BAR REVIEW

Where to drink this week.

1. Plew’s brews

8409 N. Lombard St., 283-2243. in this beer bar on the fringes of st. johns, there are blacklit bathrooms, grandma couches that smell of oMMP, a huge collection of obscure board games, thrifted T-shirts and a mess of obscure local brews like those from awesome ales. Make it a “4:19 got a Minute iPa.”

2. Prettyman’s General

2637 SE Hawthorne Blvd., prettymansgeneral.com. guess what twee, friendly bar just started a sunday brunch? This one did.

Way to justify your morning drinking habit, Portland. The bar as a full liquor license pending, which means cocktails are also on the way.

3. The Liquor Store

3341 SE Belmont St., 421-4483, theliquorstorepdx.com. a full remodel of the Blue Monk that is sort of a more polished version of Dig-a-Pony, the liquor store has a tiny downstairs dance floor that seems vaguely illicit.

4. Savoy Tavern

2500 SE Clinton St., 808-9999, savoypdx.com. owner Peter Bro recently brought his recipe for the all-Way burger, a “preMcDonald ’s” take on the fast-food classic, to savoy. it instantly becomes one of the best bar burgers in the city. and at $4.50 for the original (you want the two-way for $5.25), it’s a steal.

5. bar Maven

6219 SE Foster Road, 384-2079, barmaven-pdx.com.

Bar Maven has recently rounded into one of the neighborhood’s best bars, with a tight-knit crowd, interesting drink selection and walls made from a faded rainbow of reclaimed wood.

NOT REALLY LIKE ANYTHING: Likewise (3564 SE Hawthorne Blvd., likewise.website) is part bar, part performance art—a callback to the money-free, improvised ’90s, when Miranda July was still making origami out of Portland parking tickets and selling it for the price of the tickets. The tiny whitewashed room, with a long Last Supper table extending down its length, looks as much gallery as drinking space. A set of bleachers faces eerily out Likewise’s front window onto Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, making a show of the street. According to “bARTender in residence” Alicia McDaid—the bar hires new bartenders every two months as a form of artist residency—it unnerves the crap out of pedestrians to find themselves on display to an audience in the bar, so some passers-by put on a sidewalk show. McDaid plays a different role every night, from mom to goth waitress; when we arrived on a Tuesday, she was dressed as an ’80s middle-schooler, reading a Drew Barrymore cocaine autobiography and watching Heathers.

All cocktails on the menu are “Untitled,”—a whiskey soda with Thai drinking vinegars was $9, and tasty. Kombucha, cider and beer pour out of taps made from old wrestling trophies. The food consists of frozen pizza, pickles and nuts. But if you pay $700, says the menu, they’ll shut down the entire bar, drive to the coast and make you a huge seafood dinner. You get a signed portrait of the dinner after you eat it. And there is a library of art books paired with liquor bottles, from George Plimpton’s biography to books by Dave Hickey and Yoko Ono. You can read them, but they ask you to play nice because the books are precious. In fact? Always play nice. Because this place is precious in every sense of the word. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

saT. Feb. 14 beulahland Coffee & alehouse 118 NE 28th Ave. DJ Roane

eastburn

wed. Feb. 11 bar XV

15 SW 2nd AVE Deep House Wednesdays

Moloko Plus

3967 N Mississippi Ave. The Diamond stylus with King Tim 33 1/3

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Stag Party: DJ Lamar Leroy

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Event Horizon

Thurs. Feb. 12 holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Body Party: Holla n Oates, Barisone, Danny Merkury

Moloko Plus

3967 N Mississippi Ave. Strictly Vinyl

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Shadowplay

Fri. Feb. 13 eastburn

1800 E Burnside St. DJ Bad Wizard

holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Dance Yourself Clean

The GoodFoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. Soul Stew: DJ Aquaman

The Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

Girl Unit

1800 E Burnside St. DJ Kenny

holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Brenmar, DVST, GANG$IGN$, Drexler, Quarry

Mississippi studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Mrs. Dance Party, DJ Beyonda

roseland Theater

8 NW 6th Ave. Love Phenmenon: Zeds Dead

The whiskey bar 31 NW 1st Ave Paris Blohm

dig a Pony

736 Southeast Grand Ave. Emerson Lyon

Mon. Feb. 16 branx

320 SE 2nd Ave. Hundred Waters

doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Body Language, Sappho, JPrez

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Departures, DJ Waisted and Friends

Tues. Feb. 17 analog Cafe & Theater 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Boombox

The Lodge bar & Grill

sun. Feb. 15 berbati

6605 SE Powell Blvd.

DJ Easy Finger

19 SW 2nd Ave. Future Bass

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

45

Willamette Week presents

Sunday, March 1 Registration Party noon Race Begins 2:00 P.M. After Party 6:00 P.M. Race around Portland, defy winter weather, complete crazy challenges, eat at food carts, and solve riddles for your chance to win HONOR, GLORY, and a FOOD CART TOUR with Food Carts PDX. Prizes for: First Place, Best Team Name, Best Team Costume

TeaMS of 5 | $60/TeaM To regiSTer: wweek.com/CartathlonV QueSTionS? cartathlon@wweek.com

46

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2014 wweek.com

feb. 11–17 REVIEW

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

C O R Y W E AV E R

PERFORMANCE

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.

Editor: MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Theater: MATTHEW KORFHAGE (mkorfhage@wweek.com). Dance: KAITIE TODD (dance@wweek.com).

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

THEATER OPENINGS & PREVIEWS All’s Well That Ends Well: A Night Carnival

As part of Portland’s Complete Works Project—a citywide attempt to stage all of Shakespeare’s works over the course of two years—a heap of artists turn one of the Bard’s trickier plays into a variety show replete with acting, dancing, aerial feats and rock music.

Ahem, costumes encouraged. The Steep and Thorny Way to Heaven, 1464 SE 2nd Ave. 8:30 pm Friday and 9:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 13-14. $15. 21+.

The God Game

Brandon Woolley directs a play by Suzanne Bradbeer about an agnostic Republican senator, his Biblequoting wife, and their friend—also a Republican—who was the lover of the senator’s recently deceased brother.

Politics! Religion! Sex! Go! Shaking the Tree, 823 SE Grant Ave., 235-0635.

7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through March 7. $15-$22.

Love Letters

As a benefit for Stumptown Stages, screen actors Jack Bannon and Ellen Travolta (sister to John) perform A.R. Gurney’s epistolary play about a longrunning correspondence between two upper-crust friends. Brunish Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 12-14. $25-$35.

The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940

North End Players, based in St. Johns, present a farce by John Bishop that tries to poke fun at both murder mysteries and musicals while not really being either of those things. St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 7600 N Hereford St., 705-2088. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Feb. 13-14 and 20-21; 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, Feb. 26-27 and 2 pm Saturday, Feb. 28. $12.

The Mystery Box Show

Like The Moth, just with true stories about all things sex, from steamy to bittersweet to brutally embarrassing. And this time, appropriately, on Valentine’s Day. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 7 pm Saturday, Feb. 14. $16-$28. 21+.

Precious Little

Defunkt Theatre presents Madeleine George’s play about a gay linguist in her early 40s who decides to have a child on her own. When she learns her child might have a genetic abnormality, she’s launched down a path that introduces her to—among others—the last speaker of a dying language and a gorilla at the zoo. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 481-2960. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Sundays through March 21 (no shows Feb. 15 and 22). $15-$25 Fridays-Saturdays, “pay what you can” Thursdays and Sundays.

Puppet Slam

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Beady Little Eyes and Tears of Joy join forces to put on a possibly lewd, definitely foul-mouthed puppet show. Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 231-3959. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, Feb. 13-14. $10-$12.

Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella

You know the story. This is the glitzy Broadway version. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 800-745-3000. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday and 1 and 6:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 17-22. $40-$100.

Romeo and Juliet

Students from Portland Actors Conservatory, joined by a few guest artists, take on Shakespeare’s classic

tale of doomed romance—with a little original rock music. Portland Actors Conservatory, 1436 SW Montgomery St., 274-1717. 7:30 pm ThursdaysSaturdays and 2 pm Sundays through March 1. $5-$25.

Tea

Readers Theatre Repertory presents a staged reading of Velina Hasu Houston’s play, which is set right after World War II and follows five Japanese women who move to the American Midwest with their servicemen husbands. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 971-266-3787. 8 pm FridaySaturday, Feb. 13-14. $8.

What Is Erotic?

The phrase “sex-positive theater” isn’t a particularly, well, sexy one.

But Eleanor O’Brien has a knack for making theater about sex that’s buoyant, candid and refreshingly devoid of preachiness. Her company, Dance Naked Productions, presents a cabaret-style show of original performances that all attempt to answer the same question: What is erotic?

Expect standup, spoken word, storytelling, dancing, singing and probably some puppets (because Portland). The Headwaters, 55 NE Farragut St., No. 9. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 12-14. $15-$25.

NEW REVIEWS Opción Múltiple

Imagine sharing an apartment with four roommates who have no sense of personal space. There’s the overly aggressive guy, the childish drama queen, the mom type who tries to make everyone get along, and the slut.

Now imagine these four people follow you everywhere because they live not in your apartment but in your mind. If this sounds incredibly annoying, it is, as the production of Opción Múltiple makes vividly clear. Directed by Nelda Reyes, Milagro Theater presents the American premiere of the Spanishlanguage play (shown with English supertitles) by Luis Mario Moncada Gil. Diana is a woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder (what we used to call multiple personality disorder). Stemming from a childhood trauma, Diana’s (Yolanda Porter) fragmented personality has become so much a part of her life that she thinks of them as friends who help her in difficult situations. This is played to mostly comic effect in the first act, as when Diana attempts to host a date for dinner who unwittingly finds himself being seduced one minute by the skanky troublemaker Petra (Nurys Herrera) and threatened with bodily harm the next by the Steel Reservechugging Sabueso (Vincente GuzmanOrozco). But forays into heavy-handed melodrama in the second act, dialogue that is almost exclusively shouted, and over-the-top characterizations all begin to grate the nerves.

Diana’s sanity it not the only one left in question. PENELOPE BASS. Miracle Theatre, 525 SE Stark St., 236-7253.

7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Feb. 28. $16-$24.

Little Gem

Corrib Theatre presents a play by Dubliner Elaine Murphy that weaves together monologues by three generations of Irish women from the same family. Expect tales about the big stuff—death, sex, love—but also abut salsa dancing, fake tans and vibrators. [See review online at wweek. com] Kells, 112 SW 2nd Ave., corribtheatre.org. 7:30 pm Mondays-Thursdays through Feb. 26. $15-$25.

CONT. on page 48

romancing tHe don: carmen (sandra Piques eddy) seduces don José (chad shelton).

HEY HEY, BIZET PORTLAND OPERA PUTS ON A CATHARTIC, PASSIONATE, BRAVURA PRODUCTION OF CARMEN. by r icha r d speer

243-2122

Portland Opera’s impassioned take on Georges Bizet’s Carmen is the most electrifying production the company has staged since 2010’s sad-clownfest, Pagliacci. Like that opera, Carmen centers on a man who gets really mad when his woman leaves him for another guy—so mad, in fact, that he kills her. Both productions featured high-voltage singing perfectly in sync with ever-ratcheting dramatic intensity. But while Pagliacci has only two acts, Carmen sustains its fever pitch for four. It is a marathon of singing, acting, staging, conducting and orchestral performance dispatched with staying power to burn. Bizet’s masterpiece is one of the most frequently performed operas in the standard repertoire, and this staging shows why. Anyone who thinks they don’t like opera—that it’s boring, stilted and has no relevance to contemporary life— should run immediately to this bubbling cauldron of a production, and find themselves corrected.

On opening night Feb. 6, mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy played the title character as a sexy gypsy, barefoot and hiking up her peasant skirt. In her famous “Habanera,” she offhandedly seduces a fiercely brooding military man named Don José (Chad Shelton). When he grabs Carmen’s arm, you feel the heat between them. After a torrid affair, the free-spirited Carmen moves right along to the glamorous bullfighter Escamillo (Eric Greene), a lady’s man secure enough in his masculinity to sport pink tights while spearing bulls.

Don José isn’t down with his lady getting speared by the toreador, however. He’s equally conflicted when circumstances force him to desert his platoon and live the life of a smuggler in the mountains outside Seville. And although he’s crazy for Carmen, he feels guilty for not returning to his village to attend to his dying mother and marry his loving but mousy admirer, Micaëla (Jennifer

Forni). In the final act, tensions culminate when Don José stalks Carmen, confronting her outside one of Escamillo’s bullfights. It’s Carmen, not the bull, who gets gored, though, when she refuses Don José’s advances and in a fit of madness he cuts her throat. This is juicy stuff, folks.

In this fatalistic fable, the singers resplend like Spanish sunshine. No one among the cast has a huge voice, but the main players held their own amid Keller Auditorium’s unforgiving acoustics. Ultimately this opera lives and dies by the chemistry between Carmen and Don José, and Eddy and Shelton scorched one another and the audience with their combustive friction as the star-crossed lovers. They gave themselves over to their characters’ ardor, but didn’t let their tones turn harsh when the emotions got ugly. Greene is a lighter, more fluttery baritone than we normally hear in the role of Escamillo, but he wins points for singing a high F in the “Toreador Song” while leaping off a table.

Forni provided the night’s plushest star turn with her expansive phrasing and round, yet incisive tone in the opulent aria “Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante.”

The singers delivered their spoken dialogue in convincing French, with plenty of nasal vowels and swallowed “r’”s. Conductor George Manahan paced the orchestra briskly but allowed the singers breathing room when their big moments called for it. Thanks to stage director Eric Einhorn, the action flowed organically and with verve, while designer Eduardo V. Sicango’s costumes captured the 19th-century Spanish style without dipping into parody. An unexpected pleasure came courtesy of two international-caliber flamenco dancers, Glenda Sol Koeraus and Antonio Granjero.

Their dance between the third and fourth acts was so precise and sensual that the audience’s applause literally almost stopped the show.

Part of what makes exceptional opera so rewarding is its near-unbearable catharsis. To live through stories that engage primal emotions such as lust and jealousy, embodied by voices so powerful that they fill large halls without microphones, is an experience that spits you out feeling oddly cleansed. Most of us will never kill a lover who has betrayed us. But when the act is performed with this much gusto, just being in the audience feels almost as powerful as the real thing. see it: Carmen is at the Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 248-4335, on Thursday and Saturday, Feb. 12 and 14. 7:30 pm. $25-$270.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

47

PERFORMANCE Beyond the Print

#WWEEK NEVER MISS A BEAT. @WillametteWeek

FEB. 11–17

ALSO PLAYING Becoming Dr. Ruth

In this solo show at Triangle Productions, local theater stalwart Wendy Westerwelle stars as Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Before she became a wonderfully frank and funny sex therapist, Westheimer was whisked away from her family on the Kindertransport, spent time as a sniper in Israel and taught at the Sorbonne.

Unfortunately, reviews of other productions suggest Mark St. Germain’s script has little of Westheimer’s vivacity or candor. In the mood for a good time? Head to Westheimer’s Twitter feed.

Sample tweet: “Sigmund Freud said clitoral orgasms were ‘infantile.’ Today is his b’day & ladies I suggest you celebrate in a childish manner!”Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, 1785 NE Sandy Blvd., 239-5919.

7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Feb. 28. $15-$30.

Cuff Me!

Can’t wait for the movie adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey to hit the multiplex? Get your dose of questionable BDSM and abrupt tampon removal in this theatrical parody, which not only spoofs EL James’ novel, but also features tunes by Britney Spears, Madonna and Carly Rae Jepsen. Happy Valentine’s Day. Winningstad Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Saturday, Feb. 10-14. $49.50-$53.50.

Dead Man’s Cell Phone

@wweek @WillametteWeek

Profile Theatre kicks off its season of Sarah Ruhl—a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee who has one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary American theater—with the playwright’s 2007 comedy about a woman who comes into ownership of a dead man’s cellphone.

That sets her down an unexpectedly twisty path, one that involves much more than text messages and and mysterious voicemails. Like much of Ruhl’s work, the play juggles the eccentric and the mundane, and does so with vibrant, bold and lyrical language.

Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 242-0080. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Feb. 15. $15-$32.

Gender Tree

A work in progress by Portlander Cassandra Boice, Gender Tree begins by posing a few questions.

Do people still identify with traditional gender roles? How do you define the word “gender”?

But rather than becoming didactic, this Post5 production unfolds into a thoughtful and amusing look at how gender issues affect our everyday life. In a series of short vignettes, we meet a variety of characters: an optimistic male feminist debating a cynical women’s studies major, a couple deciding who will stay home with the baby, a polyamorous woman forced to explain herself on a tense date.

The two performers, Rebecca Ridenour and Phillip Berns, maintain wicked comic timing as they scream, squawk and support each other through some of life’s trickier matters of gender and acceptance.

KAITIE TODD. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 9 pm Thursdays-Fridays and 8:30 pm Saturdays-Sundays through Feb. 14. $15; Sundays “pay what you can”.

Portland Storytellers Guild

For Touching the Heart and Tingling the Spine, Portland Storytellers Guild presents an evening of romantic and otherwise heart-quickening tales.

Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., 358-0898. 7:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 14. $8-$10.

Skippyjon Jones

Oregon Children’s Theatre stages a musical about a Siamese cat who

48

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

realizes his alter ego is a swordfighting Chihuahua named Skippito Friskito, who must contend with a humongous bee, Alfredo Buzzito El Blimpo Bumblebeeto Bandito... because this play is nothing if not linguistically and culturally unimpeachable. (Parents, don’t worry too much: The show apparently offers up some feminism alongside its over-the-top accents.) Best for ages 4 and up. Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 228-9571. 2 and 5 pm Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Feb. 15. $15-$30.

The Jungle Book

In collaboration with the Anjali School of Dance, Northwest Children’s Theatre presents an original adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic adventure tales.

NW Neighborhood Cultural Center, 1819 NW Everett St., 222-4480.

Noon and 4 pm Saturdays-Sundays through March 1 (no 4 pm shows Feb. 16 and March 1). $17-23.

The Seven Wonders of Ballyknock

The Seven Wonders of Ballyknock aren’t too impressive. “The eighth is my arse!” says Mag (Marilyn Stacey), proprietor of the Cap ’n’ Bells pub. But her lumbering, amiable son Jonty (Heath Koerschgen)—the only boy from this sleepy Irish town to return from the recently ended World War II—is obsessed with them. So when Cordelia (Louise Chambers), a New York blue blood with a mysterious connection to Ballyknock, shows up, Jonty jumps at the chance to play tour guide. Set entirely in the bar—the lights go dim for the outdoor scenes—with a fairly small cast, this Lakewood Theatre production is carried instead by expert timing and sassy punches. Director Stephanie Mulligan helps the cast find a careful balance between jaunty humor and the play’s darker elements. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 6353901. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday; 2 pm Sunday. Through Feb. 15. $30-$32.

The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents

Though its title might suggest something adorably uncomfortable, Lukas Bärfuss’ The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents is downright anxiety-inducing. For years, Dora (Shawna Nordman) has taken medications for an unspecified condition, and they’ve kept her heavily sedated. But when her mother (Lisamarie Harrison) decides she no longer needs the drugs, Dora’s libido suddenly goes into overdrive. Dora directs these awakened desires toward her doctor (Mario Calcagno), who tries to explain sexual mores to her, and toward a perfume salesman known only as the fine gentleman (Nathan Dunkin), who visits the fruit stand where she works. This would all be well and good—hooray sexual liberation!—if it weren’t so clear Dora was pretty mentally unwell. Is this because she was overly medicated? Does this affect her ability to give consent? These are legitimate questions, and this Theatre Vertigo production, directed by Bobby Bermea, treats them with the sensitivity they deserve. But also with a bunch of weird blocking. When actors come onstage, they make a motion that looks like someone sleepily taking their head off their desk, and they announce the location and number of every scene. Nordman and Dunkin spiral around each other in an impressionistic dance sequence under pink lights. On top of the play’s harrowing plot, loaded dialogue (“she’s kind of like my hobby horse if you know what I mean,” says Dora’s boss at the fruit stand), and Nordman’s compelling performance—one moment wideeyed and catatonic, the next arms akimbo in imitation of a nonchalant man—these affectations feel unnecessary. It’s already fuckedup enough. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave.,

FEB. 11–17

The World Goes ’Round

Tigard’s Broadway Rose Theatre presents a musical revue of songs

by John Kander and Fred Ebb, who contributed tunes to Cabaret and Chicago, and crafted the theme song to Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York. Broadway Rose New Stage Theatre, 12850 SW Grant Ave., Tigard, 620-5262. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays through March 1. $30-$42.

Threesome

It only takes about 10 minutes for the first penis to appear. But that’s hardly the most shocking moment in Threesome, a richly scripted worldpremiere production by Seattle playwright Yussef El Guindi. Under the careful blocking of director Chris Coleman, the bed is the centripetal force grounding the action—the titular threesome rotates around it, dressing, undressing, moving from under the covers to the room’s furthest corners. Couple Rashid (Dominic Rains) and Leila (Alia Attallah) make up two-thirds of the three. Both are Egyptian-American artists—he a photographer, she a writer. They’ve invited over their acquaintance, Doug (Quinn Franzen), for a night of horizon-broadening fun. But instead of becoming a sexual playground, the couple’s spartan bedroom plays host to a mess of neuroses. As flesh is gradually revealed, so are secrets about the couple’s history that suggest this night might not be the lighthearted romp it would at first seem. That’s upsetting to Doug, a consummate New Age Bro who’s “all about good vibes and good karma.” But that’s is the thing about threesomes. In practice, twice as many partners offers double the opportunity for humiliation. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700.

7:30 pm Tuesdays-Sundays (excluding Feb. 22 and 24, and March 3 and 8); 2 pm select Saturdays-Sundays; noon select Thursdays. Through March 8. $20-$55.

COMEDY & VARIETY Am I Right, Ladies?

This Saint Valentine’s Day installment of the feminist-minded comedy showcase features standup from JoAnn Schinderle, Caitlin Weierhauser, Whitney Streed, Andy MacDonald, Christen Manville and Amanda Warder, as well as music from the Doubleclicks. Ford Food and Drink, 2505 SE 11th Ave., 236-3023. 8 pm Saturday, Feb. 14. $5 suggested.

Bam!

The Brody folks present a new improv show, in which the performers begin the show blindfolded—and thus unable to see how the stage is set or how they’re being costumed.

Once the blindfolds come off, the ad-libbing begins. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm Saturdays through Feb. 28. $8.

Control Yourself: A Showcase of Funny JoAnn Schinderle—a Midwest transplant with a high-energy, engaging style—hosts a free, twice-monthly standup showcase, followed by an open mic at 10 pm. Alberta Street Pub, 1036 NE Alberta St., 284-7665.

9 pm every first and third Sunday.

Free. 21+.

Curious Comedy Showdown

Curious Comedy’s improvisers duke it out, in hopes of winning audience votes and advancing to the next round of competition. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 7:30 pm every Friday and Saturday. $12-$15.

Down to Funny

Comedians Katie Brien and Hutch Harris (you might know the latter from a little band called the Thermals) co-produce a twice-

monthly comedy showcase, with this installment featuring standup from Amy Miller, Scoot Herring, Alex Rios, Zak Toscani and prodigal comic Shane Torres. Analog Cafe, 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 8 pm Thursday, Feb. 12. Donation. 21+.

Earthquake Hurricane

An army of impressive Portland comedians—Curtis Cook, Alex Falcone, Bri Pruett and Anthony Lopez—host a weekly standup showcase with some of the funniest people you’ll ever see in the basement of a bike shop. Kickstand Comedy Space, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., 937-219-1334. 8:30 pm every Wednesday. $5 suggested.

Funny Humans vs. the Wheel

If you go to enough shows around town, you start to memorize comedians’ sets. Think of this weekly show, hosted by silly duo Adam Pasi and David Mascorro, as an antidote to all that repetition: Comedians

start out with a planned set, but halfway through, they have to spin a wheel to determine what comes next—crowd work, one-liners, maybe even a heckle battle. Bar of the Gods, 4801 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 2322037. 9 pm every Sunday. Free. 21+.

Hannibal Buress

Unless your name is Bill Cosby, you’re probably a fan of Hannibal Buress. And if you’re not, you should be. Because in addition to calling out Cosby as a rapist, Buress has an infectious and unpredictable standup style, co-hosts The Eric Andre Show, and on Broad City plays Lincoln—Ilana’s dentist fuckbuddy—with deadpan charm and puppy-dog patience. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694. 7 pm Monday and 7 and 10 pm Tuesday, Feb. 16-17. $22-$25; Tuesday shows sold out. 21+.

CONT. on page 50

REVIEW C O U R T E S Y O F P O R T L A N D P L AY H O U S E

971-244-3740. 7:30 pm ThursdaysSaturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Feb. 14. $20; Thursdays “pay what you will.”

PERFORMANCE

PICK ONE: A cast member asks the audience to spend $1,000.

HOW TO END POVERTY IN 90 MINUTES (SOJOURN THEATRE) Political dialogue way better than on Facebook.

One thousand dollars isn’t going to end poverty, but it will do something.

And what it does is up to you—you

and, like, 100 other people.

At Sojourn Theatre’s How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes, $10 of every ticket goes toward a pile of cash, which will be spent by various Portland organizations toward only one of five purposes: daily needs, education, making opportunities, system change or direct aid. The cast informs the audience’s decision with monologues, short scenes, quizzes and interpretive dance.

Much of the play takes on a game-show tempo, including panelists from partner organizations (the Feb. 7 show included Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury) who have a frantic 30 seconds to field questions. It’s a lot to handle, but director Liam KaasLentz manages to pull actual emotion from the fray with scenes and character work. The advantage of your radio dying in the third quarter of every Trail Blazers game, explains Vin Shambry in a lullaby about childhood poverty, is you can pretend they always win. When your employer asks for “clean-cut” candidates, a hiring professional (Sarah Sawicki) learns, they’re asking for bougie white people.

If you think it sounds a little like a high-school assembly, you’re not wrong. In one of the first scenes, a cast member offers the dictionary definition of “poverty” over high-energy music. But the definition turns out to be fluid—the government defines poverty based on early-’60s food prices— and the play’s embrace of this ambiguity separates it from didactic D.A.R.E. stuff.

How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes is like all plays: an invitation to think. But what’s singular is that it invites the audience to think together. At a time when teeing off on strangers on your cousin’s Facebook page passes for “political dialogue,” Sojourn has managed to make a space for informed, relevant political conversation. When the lights went up, the crowd didn’t stand for the obligatory Portland ovation. Everyone was still in their seats, talking about How to End Poverty and how to end poverty. JAMES HELMSWORTH. GO: Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St., 488-5822. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2 and 7 pm Sundays through Feb. 22. $40, $20 rush tickets.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

49

FEB. 11–17

Improv All-Stars

A sextet of impressive improvisers— including Shelley McLendon, Nicholas Kessler and Beau Brousseau—put on an evening of ad-libbed comedy somehow inspired by Portland Center Stage’s current production, Threesome. That show is (duh) about a threesome that quickly goes from amusing to downright tense, so expect some steamy (and possibly awkward) improv tonight. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700.

8 pm Monday, Feb. 16. $10.

It’s Gonna Be Okay

Hosted by the ever-chipper Barbara Holm, this twice-monthly showcase is a prime spot to catch Portland’s top comics, as well as the occasional out-of-towner. The cozy basement room is almost always packed (especially impressive for a Monday night), and Holm often tosses out prizes—plastic dinosaur figurines, comic books—to audience members.

Also: free skeeball afterward.

EastBurn, 1800 E Burnside St., 2362876. 8:30 pm every first and third Monday. Free. 21+.

Lachlan Patterson

The Canadian-born comedian, who landed in the runner-up spot in the most recent season of Last Comic Standing, brings his relaxed standup to Helium for a three-night stand.

Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm Thursday and 7:30 and 10 pm Friday-Saturday, Feb. 12-14. $18-$36. 21+.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

A night of standup to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association Oregon Chapter. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 8 pm Friday, Feb. 13. $10-$20.

Love Struck

Arcane bring a flapper’s flare to their performance, and Taylor Maiden dances go-go style. Ivana Mandalay, Amelia Alamode, Taylor Maiden, Ruby Rounds, Cardinal Vixen and Twirlin Tex are also set to walk the stage with their classicallyinfluenced acts. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 841-6734. 8 pm Thursday, Feb. 12. $5. 21+.

Nederlands Dans Theater 2

Since its formation in 1978, Nederlands Dans Theater 2 has built a reputation for being both bold and edgy in its contemporary choreography. The company features 16 dancers, all between ages 17 and 22. After 12 years, White Bird brings the young troupe back to Portland, where the company performs a repertory of some of its most celebrated dances. One piece, Sharon Eyal and DJ Gai Behar’s 2013 work, Sara, takes place in a dream world, with dancers wearing unsettling, almost animalistic contact lenses.

Another, Jonathan Anger’s I KNEW THEN, explores rebellion and group thought, set entirely to songs by Van Morrison. Alexander Ekman’s Cacti is a work with sharp, sudden movements where the dancers act as the instruments to the classical score, dancing amid a stage littered with cacti. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 245-1600. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 11. $26-$72. All ages.

Skinner/Kirk Dance Ensemble

Skinner/Kirk Dance Ensemble returns to the stage after nearly three years. Eric Skinner and Daniel Kirk—also founding members for Oregon Ballet Theatre—met in 1989

and have danced together ever since. The group blends ballet, aerial and modern dance styles, with an emphasis on fluid strength and theatricality. For this performance, the company revists one of Skinner’s earlier works, Urban Sprawl, which examines the romance and the isolation of city life. Later, the ensemble premieres “Nat’s Farm,” a piece inspired by Skinner and Kirk’s favorite spot on Martha’s Vineyard set to an original score by composer Tim Ribner. BodyVox Dance Center, 1201 NW 17th Ave., 229-0627. 7 pm Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 12-14 and 19-21 and 2 pm Saturday, Feb. 21 . $25-$59.

The Art of Bellydance

Local bellydance journal From the Hip presents its ninth showcase, The Art of Bellydance, as a bid to educate audiences on the styles. This performance doesn’t stick solely to traditional bellydancing though, also covering Tribal Fusion—which commonly blends other dance styles like flamenco or ballet—and American Tribal Style of bellydance. Local three-piece collective Lucine Dance Company headlines, a group formed in late 2013 that specialize in a delicate, hypnotic style of Tribal Fusion. Violetta, The Tribal Kind, Endymienne, Elena Villa and Laurel also perform.

Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899. 7 pm Friday, Feb. 13. $8-$15. All ages.

For more Performance listings, visit

REVIEW OWEN CAREY

PERFORMANCE

In the spirit of the season, Brody Theater presents a love-themed improv show. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm FridaySaturday, Feb. 13-14 and 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 21. $9-$12.

Picture This!

In a show that mashes standup and Pictionary, comics perform while artists illustrate their sets live. There’s a predictable tendency toward penis drawings, but also an offbeat play between the visual and the verbal. Andie Main hosts.

Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm every second Friday. $7-$10; $5 with the purchase of a ticket to the 7:30 pm show.

Test Tube with Steven Wilber

For this sporadically occurring showcase, host Steven Wilber asks comics to bring their strangest material to the stage—stuff not normally seen at Helium, including characters, songs, video bits, cartooning tutorials, faux commercials, whatever. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm Wednesday, Feb. 11. $10-$18. 21+.

The Comedy Bull

The churlishly avuncular Anatoli Brant brings some heat to the comedy scene with this competitive show, which requires standups to respond to surprise topics and improv challenges. The funnier they are, the longer they remain onstage.

Brant recently expanded the show to Helium: Every three months, the six strongest comedians will duke it out. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm every second Friday. $8.

DANCE All That Glitters: Advanced Burlesque Graduation

These grads are turning their tassels a little differently by showing off the boa work, twirling and advanced choreography they’ve been working on during their seven weeks of training at All That Glitters Burlesque Academy. Una Solitaire and Loxie

50

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

OUT CROWD: Everyone has a group that will accept them unconditionally—but it’s not always the people they know. Artists Repertory Theatre explores this notion with Nina Raine’s Tribes, a play that follows Billy (Stephen Drabicki) and his arrogant, intellectual family. Set almost entirely in their living room, we watch as the group flings words around like throwing stars, arguing about God, the opera, or the nuts sitting on the table. That is, everyone does except Billy, a 20-something who was born deaf and has never been taught sign language. But when he falls in love with Sylvia (the enthralling Amy Newman), who is losing her hearing, she introduces him to the deaf community. Later, when Billy announces that he’s leaving his family, Kristeen Willis Crosser’s lighting design thoughtfully taps into his surreal emotions by slowly brightening the lights to an unbearable sharpness, and director Dámaso Rodriguez is able to reveal character through blocking, grouping the family tightly around the table or scattering them stubbornly around the room. The ending presents the only cringe-worthy moment of the two-hour performance, when the play’s parting message is spelled out too slowly—accompanied by cheesy acoustic music. This one moment isn’t enough to spoil the play, however. The lively wordplay and fast pacing carries the play through an examination of how speaking the same language— literally or otherwise—can mean everything. KAITIE TODD. SEE IT: Tribes is at Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-Sundays and 2 pm Sundays through March 1; 2 pm Saturday, Feb. 28. $25-$49.

VISUAL ARTS

feb. 11–17

Jo Hamilton: Whom

= 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.

Adam D. Miller: Hive Mind

Circles and triangles and hot dogs—oh my? Actually, Adam D. Miller’s simple shapes seem more clearly to resemble eyes, vaginas and abstracted penises, pieced together in compositions with the overall gestalt of faces and neo-primitivist stick figures. In paintings such as Mondo Mega Totem and Infinity-Pod Godhead Descended, bright colors combine with slapdash lines and squiggles into a kind of high-energy graffiti. His mixed-media totemic masks emanate a lowbrow appeal; less so his drawings, which, devoid of enlivening color, are amateurish in ways that may or may not be intentional. The show’s catalog claims Miller’s works are meditations on “the apocalypse, the human condition, the body and metamorphosis.”

That’s a heavy (and dubious) conceptual weight to be borne by colorful stick figures and hot dogs. Through Feb. 14. Rocksbox, 6540 N Interstate Ave., 971-506-8938.

Bill Will: Love Thy Neighbor

When you walk into Bill Will’s eccentric installation, Love Thy Neighbor, you see nine electric bread-makers lined up in a grid. Each has an electric cord trailing out, leading to sockets in the middle of the room, and out of each dough-stirring pan a tall metal rod sticks out, each with a miniature black fighter plane at the tippy-top.

It’s not much to look at. But when you step on a pedal that protrudes beneath the velvet rope cordoning off the bread-makers, suddenly the static, would-be sculptures turn kinetic: The metal rods rotate quickly, which sends the little fighters hurtling round and round, lurching here and there, careening so wildly it seems they might hurtle off their rods and smack you in the face. This is a fun moment, especially if you’re under age 10, but after the initial moment of “what the?” the gimmick grows tiresome, and you make your way to the exit, never to think of it again. Through March 1. Nine Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., 227-7114.

Constructs

Constructs is curator Rachel Adams’ inspired solution to the quandary of how to fill Disjecta’s massive exhibition space. This clean, elegant show is a kind of “etude on the wall,” a series of strategies for filling the space without actually plopping anything down in the middle of it.

Three artists pull the trick off with élan. Nathan Green’s earth-toned mural recalls the abstract patterns of the late minimalist Sol LeWitt, and Pablo Rasgado’s strips of vertical wall coverings are excavated from buildings he’s seen around the world. Most impressively of all, Laura Vandenburg’s cut-paper sculptures have obsessive detail that complement their gigantic scale. The show’s coup de grâce is Adams’ ballsy decision to leave a large section of the north wall empty. The negative space lends an off-kilter dynamism that perfectly sets off the three artists’ works.

Through March 1. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., 286-9449.

Dark Ecologies

The first thing you see when you walk into Bullseye’s three-artist show, Dark Ecologies, is Carolyn Hopkins’ beautiful and disturbing sculpture, Cascade.

It depicts a strung-up dog with stylized entrails spilling out of its belly and looping over a tree limb. Glass beads link the dog to an eviscerated bird underneath it, which appears to leak blood into a red pool on the floor. This violent, virtuosic piece is left wide open to each viewer’s interpretation. Emily Nachison’s Diver is equally allusive, with its succession of oysters opening up to reveal crystals and geodes inside. Finally, Susan Harlan’s kiln-formed glass panels are diminutive masterpieces of exquisitely nuanced textures and wave forms in blue, beige, black and

orange. Dark Ecologies is a strong, haunting show. Through March 28.

Bullseye Projects, 300 NW 13th Ave., 227-0222.

Dark Paradise

Ecologically themed art tends to be dull and sanctimonious, but not so in the hands of Wesley Younie.

His idylls of environmental paradise lost abound with equal parts whimsy and intelligence. In the paintings Timeshare and All Inclusive, he updates Audubon-style bird illustrations with images of garish resort hotels and cruise ships—a droll commentary on civilization’s relentless encroachment upon the natural world. Natural History I and II counterpose a decorative illustration of a bird, cherry tree, and waterfall with a decidedly un-decorative assortment of mosquitoes, poisonous mushrooms and a bat hanging upside down. Wild West, a fantasia on Manifest Destiny, fills the picture plane with buffalo, deer, a California condor, tepees and a stream snaking through an idealized landscape. As if this portrait of the American West were not hyperbolic enough, Younie adds a rainbow, mountains made of crystal, and abstracted clouds and foliage in shimmering gold leaf. The paintings draw our attention to the ways in which we love to deify nature, then promptly desecrate it. Through March 15. Mark Woolley Gallery @ Pioneer, 700 SW 5th Ave., 3rd floor, Pioneer Place Mall, 998-4152.

Darren Orange: Orange on Blue

By turns refined, organic and downright gnarly, Darren Orange’s paintings have made their way around Portland galleries such as Lovelake, Portland State’s Littman Gallery, Mt. Hood Community College and many a Cascade AIDS Project art auction. His Portland fans will be heading to Astoria this month to see an eerie new installation he’s putting up in the derelict lobby of the once-grand Astor Hotel. Orange is stringing up eight large-format paintings—all blue, all abstractions of the Columbia River—from the columns of the 1920s-era hotel and illuminating them with LED lights. Thirtysix more paintings will be displayed on the walls. Each weekend of the month, different entertainers will add their interpretations to Orange’s paintings. We think the wildest iteration will be on Valentine’s Day (5-11 pm), when four experimental sound artists will invite guests to blow a Breathalyzer; the aggregate bloodalcohol level of the room will determine the pitch and rhythms of the music. Regular viewing hours 2-5 pm, Feb. 13-15, 20-22, 27 and 28. Details about entertainment events at darrenorange.com. Astor Hotel Building Lobby, 1421-A Commercial St.

It’s Raining Cats and Dogs

Animal-themed art shows should be granted a special rung in hell. In 2008, Froelick devoted a show to horses and so did Butters. Yes, that was seven years ago, but the statute of limitations is far from up on cutesy showcases of our fun ’n’ furry friends.

Now comes Charles Hartman’s paean: as the show’s subtitle puts it, A Group Exhibition of the Canine and Feline.

There are important historical artists represented here—André Kertész (1894-85) and Arnold Newman (19182006), for example—but really? Do those of us who love pets really need to keep vintage photographs of pets around the house to remind us how much we love pets? Maybe so. Maybe we’d also like Anne Geddes photos in the living room to remind us just how adorable cherubic little babies wearing funny outfits are. If that sounds good, Charles Hartman has just the show for you. Through March 15. Charles A. Hartman Fine Art, 134 NW 8th Ave., 287-3886.

After a thoughtful and poignant show last year at Q Center, Jo Hamilton unveils a new body of work at Laura Russo Gallery. This artist works in crochet, yet her work transcends ghettoization into the subgenre of “fabric art.” Working in portraiture, she achieves uncanny realism, which she simultaneously undermines and heightens by letting the fabric hang down from the subjects’ faces, bodies and clothes. This stalactite-like effect suggests the decay we all succumb to over time. It’s a sumptuous, sobering show. Through Feb. 28. Laura Russo Gallery, 805 NW 21st Ave., 226-2754.

Joe Rudko: Picturesque

It’s heartening when an established blue-chip gallery such as PDX Contemporary takes on an artist for his first-ever gallery show. That’s happening this month when Joe Rudko, a recent graduate of Western Washington University, makes his debut with the exhibition Picturesque.

Spartan and elegant, Rudko’s works on paper exude minimalist savoir-faire.

He creates them by ripping, cutting, folding and reconfiguring photographs and other images into new compositions, challenging the viewer to reconsider the dynamic between component parts and overall gestalt. Through Feb. 28. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063.

back soulfully on a log spanning a creek. These pagan-flavored pictures combine soft focus and dappled sunlight searing through forest clearings. It’s a rhapsody on a woo-woo witchy woman who’s in touch with her primal side, and while we’ve seen this subject before, Angelique makes us care about it again through a combination of self-assured technique and sheer sincerity. This makes for a strong close for Nisus, which will be missed on the local gallery scene.

Through Feb. 15. Nisus Gallery, 8371 N Interstate Ave., Suite 1, 806-1427.

Words, Words, Words: An Exhibition of Text-based Artwork

The relationships between text and image have given artists fodder for exploration for a long, long time. That’s what hieroglyphics were about, as well as illuminated manuscripts, petroglyphs and the traditions of Chinese, Japanese and Islamic calligraphy. It’s

also what inspires the artists displaying their work in February and March at Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Jenny Holzer’s scrolling electronic messages have made her an international art star. Ditto for Ed Ruscha’s enigmatic words painted in typeset fonts across mountain and desert vistas. And then there are the text-and-map sculptures of U.K.-born, Ashland-based artist Matthew Picton. Picton, who used to show at Mark Woolley Gallery and Pulliam Deffenbaugh, joins Elizabeth Leach’s roster with this exhibition.

His sinuous mixed-media sculptures map both geography and time, for an overall effect that is political and deeply personal. Through March 28.

Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521.

For more Visual Arts listings, visit

REVIEW

Monika Merva: Origins of Emotions

For still-life photographers, finding the sublime in everyday life is a perennial challenge. Monika Merva gets a “Mission Accomplished” sticker for Origins of Emotions, a photographic essay that places the mundanity of family life in a sweeping, transcendentalist context that bears comparison to filmmaker Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Through Merva’s lens, people and things take on a searing poignancy. In the print Doki, an elderly woman sits stoically, a white comb through her white hair. She could be your grandmother or mine, a warm-and-fuzzy matriarch or a bitter old biddy; she is a cipher, a sieve into which we pour our own experiences. On the other end of the temporal spectrum, the print On the Couch shows a cherubic girl reclining on a sofa; it looks like summertime, on one of those endless days when the only thing to do is daydream and doze. Between the bookends of the old woman and the little girl lies the bulk of life, which Merva captures with preternatural attention. The mushroom in the namesake print glows with an uncanny red-orange; and an image of a sunny-side up egg, plopped onto a red plate before a black background, takes on an almost metaphysical significance. Never has breakfast looked so profound. Through March 1. Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., 2250210.

Skinny Dip

Lisa Rybovich Crallé’s sculptures are a little bit taller than a person, and some of them look like they’re stretching out their candy-colored arms to give you a hug. Made of steel, resin and acrylic, these fundamentally anthropomorphic works have a child-like insouciance, evoking the creatures in classic kids’ shows like “Fraggle Rock” and “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.”

Similar visual motifs adapt to a twodimensional mode in the artist’s Fresh Clippings, a series of ink collages that makes much of organic shapes recalling trees, shrubs and flowers. They’re borderline precious and more than a trifle too aware of Henri Matisse’s famous gouache cut-outs. Through Feb. 28. Hap Gallery, 916 NW Flanders St., 444-7101.

The New Eve

After a three-year run and a total of 30 exhibitions (the majority of which were superb), Nisus Gallery will close Feb. 15. Its final show is Christal Angelique’s The New Eve, a moody meditation on nature-worship. In 35-millimeter photographs and images projected on the gallery walls, Angelique stages self-portraits in which she climbs ladders, poses exultantly on a tree stump and lies

ElEctric FiElds ii by JErEmy roTSzTaIn

JEREMY ROTSZTAIN, ELECTRIC FIELDS Now in 3-D!

With Microsoft’s new HoloLens upping the ante on virtual reality just as Google Glass sunsets, Portland artist Jeremy Rotsztain finds his exhibition, Electric Fields, at the crossroads of technology and aesthetics. One of the most intriguing and troubling art shows ever mounted in a Portland gallery, it throws a new cog into the enduring quandary of where real life ends and art begins.

From the Pygmalion myth of ancient Greece to Mary Poppins and the gang jumping into an alternate universe inside chalk drawings, fictional characters have long muddied the waters that flow between the sensate world and the realm of dreams. Rotsztain takes this several steps further. He pairs an Oculus Rift headset with “generative software-animation algorithms” to simulate what it would be like to walk around inside an abstract painting. In Electric Fields I, II, and III, which are animations displayed on wall-mounted screens, arcing loops of gestural abstraction appear to slowly turn, twist and float upward, like a ticker-tape parade in zero gravity. Coupled with an ambient soundscape by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, the animation induces a meditative state verging on the psychedelic.

Then there’s the immersive virtual-reality program Ascension (@ Upfor), the show’s pièce de résistance. When you put on the provided VR goggles and look around, you see an approximation of the gallery you’re in, but it’s filled with bands of color squirming like airborne eels. You look down, and gestural ribbons are coming out of the floor; look up, and they’re rising like vapors until they exit a silo high above.

The technology isn’t yet perfectly 3-D, but it’s close, and it’s no big leap to imagine a program wherein you could walk through one of van Gogh’s iris- and sunflower-dotted fields (shades of What Dreams May Come), or the entire Louvre, for that matter, attended by some sexy cyber-docent wearing a…but I digress.

The exhibition points to the larger question of whether virtual reality will expand our purview or shrink it to the size of our living rooms, where we’ll content ourselves to stumble around with our headsets and holograms, with no need of actual people. Rotsztain’s simulation is as delicious and rich as foie gras. But foie gras is made from geese force-fed in cages. If, increasingly, we opt for experiential seductions that simultaneously sate and isolate us, we risk becoming both the cagers and the caged. RICHARD SPEER .

SEE IT: Electric Fields is at Upfor Gallery, 929 NW Flanders St., 227-5111, upfoprgallery.com. Through Feb. 28.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

51

BOOKS

FEB. 11–17

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

By PENELOPE BASS. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit lecture or reading information at least two weeks in advance to: WORDS, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: words@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11 Jess Walter

Though his previous novels were acclaimed, Jess Walter’s 2012 novel, Beautiful Ruins, launched him to the top of multiple sales and book-ofthe-year lists, lauded for its captivating narrative. Hosted by the Clark College Columbia Writers Series, Walter will read from a selection of his work, including his most recent collection of short stories, We Live in Water, and will discuss his writing process. Clark College, Foster Auditorium, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way, 360-699-6398. 1 pm. Free.

THURSDAY, FEB. 12 Jen Coleman

Portland transplant Jen Coleman, co-curator of the Spare Room reading series, will share her own work from Psalms for Dogs and Sorcerers and a forthcoming book in 2016. She will be joined by text, image and sound artist C.E. Putnam.

Glyph Cafe & Arts Space, 804 NW Couch St, 719-5481. 5 pm. Free.

Human Security in the Age of the Megachurch

STEVE EARLE MAKING HIS ONLY PORTLAND APPEARANCE FEBRUARY 18TH AT 6PM

PRE-BUY THE NEW ALBUM, TERRAPLANE, FOR GUARANTEED ADMISSION A protégé of legendary songwriters Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Earle quickly became a master storyteller in his own right, with his songs being recorded

by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt, The Pretenders, Joan Baez and countless others. Steve Earle & The Dukes are set to release the new album Terraplane on February 17th via New West Records.

University of Washington professor James K. Wellman has written books on the study of religion and the societal implications of belief, such as Religion and Human Security and Belief and Bloodshed: Religion and Violence Across Time and Tradition. Wellman’s newest book, High on God: How the Megachurch Conquered America, explores the influence of megachurches on community and security. Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union, 1825 SW Broadway, 7253000. 3 pm. Free.

Ann Pancake

Just as her 2007 novel, Strange as This Weather Has Been, depicted the effects of mountaintop-removal mining on a West Virginia family, Ann Pancake’s new collection of novellas and short stories also explores the lives of people deeply connected to their landscapes. Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley follows a family broken apart over a fracking lease, and retired miners victimized by their own industry as Pancake explores the concepts of environmental breakdown and social collapse. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323.

7:30 pm. Free.

SATURDAY, FEB. 14 CHRIS NEWMAN DELUXE COMBO Friday, February 14th at 6PM

Newman’s songwriting is Inspired by his exposure to the music of the Late 50’s through the early 70’s, as well as his romance with Punk rock and the underground he was always drawn to.

LUKE SWEENEY

52

Community Discussion on Race and Policing

Amid the protests prompted by the death of several black men at the hands of police in 2014, Oregon Humanities is hosting community discussions on race and policing and the challenges inherent in how we protect ourselves. Multnomah County Library-Kenton Branch, 8226 N Denver Ave., 988-5370. 4 pm.

Free.

Thursday February 19th at 6PM

MONDAY, FEB. 16

Fresh from festival appearances at Noise Pop, Make Music Pasadena, and CMJ with a full cast of accomplished players, Sweeney’s band is whipping up the vast spectrum of his songs into a magnetic force, drawing ears who hear something familiar yet mysteriously new.

Willa Schneberg and Heather Bourbeau

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

Portland poet Willa Schneberg’s recent collection, Rending the Garment, follows the story of a Jewish-American family through a series of linked poems, prose, flash fiction and even imagined encounters with historical figures. She will read from a selection of her work along with Bay Area poet and journalist Heather Bourbeau, who will read from her debut collection, Daily Palm Castings, which profiles people

in overlooked professions. Glyph Cafe & Arts Space, 804 NW Couch St., 719-5481. 5:30 pm. Free.

Carmen Boullosa

Bringing her own cultural perspective to the history of border relations, prolific Mexican novelist and poet Carmen Boullosa’s new novel, Texas: The Great Theft, is loosely based on the 1859 Mexican invasion of the U.S. Boullosa’s imaginative storytelling and diverse characters shed historical light on current political and cultural struggles. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

TUESDAY, FEB. 17 Kyle Boelte

Seattle-based writer Kyle Boelte explores the fluid, disorienting nature of fog and his own disjointed memories of his brother, who committed suicide when Boelte was 13, in his forthcoming memoir, The Beautiful Unseen: Variations on Fog and Forgetting. Living in San Francisco at age 30, Boelte found himself surrounded by a sea of fog each summer and locked in a struggle to understand his brother’s actions. Boelte will be joined in conversation by Portland author Justin Hocking (The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld). Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

For more Books listings, visit

REVIEW

MITCHELL S. JACKSON, THE RESIDUE YEARS When picking a backdrop for tales of inner-city struggle, authors often end up in New York or Chicago. For his debut novel , T he Residue Years (Bloomsbury, 352 pages, $17), which is set amid the mid’90s crack epidemic, Mitchell S. Jackson instead chose a neglected black community in America’s whitest city and his hometown—Portland.

Portland had a crack epidemic, too.

Jackson’s autobiographical novel, which got rave reviews upon its initial publication in 2013 and is now the Multnomah County Library’s “Everybody Reads” selection for 2015, rotates between the first-person perspectives of Champ and Grace.

Champ is a young man attempting to use his limited resources— legal and otherwise— to achieve his family’s American dream. His mother, Grace, is a recovering addict struggling to keep clean and build a future despite the strict limitations of someone spat out by the legal system.

Jackson is great with language, delivering poetic prose drawn from black vernacular. Save for a few exceptions, Jackson spells slang terms in the “proper,” traditional sense, sparing us the Twainian transcription of urban dialect so often applied to black speech. It’s an effective choice in making sure the characters aren’t seen as caricatures. The cost, though, is that reading harsh consonants in certain contexts is jarring, and can momentarily distract from the story.

For Portland residents, there’s the added bonus of reading a book set in your own backyard, the thrill of reading about the characters visiting Irving Park or driving up 7th Avenue on their way through Northeast. When Jackson describes certain neighborhoods, though, it’s as they were before being remodeled through a wave of whitewashing and gentrification, which adds a tension, contrasting the readers’ contemporary memory to the author’s outdated description. It often seems a reminder that Portland’s development has fi xed up neighborhoods without bettering the people who once called them home.

With a perspective rarely seen in such praised literature, The Residue Years is a captivating book with a poetic style that, despite the city’s alleged openness to diversity, represents a voice rarely heard in Portland. With strong themes like familial struggle, institutionalism, and choice in the face of limited options, readers should connect with the story in some way. If you haven’t read it, the library is well-stocked with copies. CURTIS COOK. GO: Multnomah County Library branches are holding discussions of The Residue Years throughout February. Mitchell S. Jackson speaks at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, on Tuesday, March 10. 7:30 pm. $15-$65. See literary-arts.org for more information.

piff COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

MOVIES

DEALING WITH THE FALLOUT WHILE THE FIRST WEEK OF PIFF FOCUSED ON CHOICES, WEEK TWO FINDS ITSELF MIRED IN THE AFTERMATH OF THOSE DIFFICULT DECISIONS. Perhaps you’re watching Viggo Mortensen wander through the unforgiving, hallucinogenic wastes of Patagonia in search of his lost daughter. Or you’re listening to testimonials from survivors while looking at the post-riot wreckage in Kiev’s Independence Square. Or you’re watching a brother spend the final few hours with his soon-tobe-incarcerated big brother in a Helsinki hovel.

You might just be in week two of the Portland International Film Festival. Many of the films from the first week are still showing, but the dour standard of PIFFs past is back with a vengeance.

It’s to be expected that films from war-torn Ukraine, Palestine and Russia won’t all be sunshine and lollipops. But Finland? The Netherlands? France? Oui. The whole world’s a shithole and the people in it merely trying to get by. (At least Brazil gave us a young people having sex on a pile of coconuts.)

If you want to avoid the shitty shit, however, here are our recommendations for PIFF this week.

COURTESY OF RINKEL FILM

C O U R T E S Y O F WA R N E R B R O S .

red army

secrets of war

r100 operating the 8-foot-tall Muppet—and Spinney’s own illustrations make the entire endeavor pop. RIHANNA WEISS. WTC, 1 pm Saturday, Feb. 14. MT, 1:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

RECOMMENDED

Concrete Night

R100

Belle and Sebastian

Red Army

about to start almost a year in jail, but it’s not like he’s leaving a charmed life behind. They live in a cramped Helsinki apartment with their mom and don’t have anything to do but smoke cigarettes in their underwear and walk around their run-down neighborhood.

Director Pirjo Honkasalo shoots it in a high-contrast black-and-white, with careful framing that makes even a drunk peeing his pants on the bus a thing of beauty. The barren landscape provides fertile ground for Ilkka’s nihilistic musings, which he delivers to Simo with thousand-mile wolf’s eyes.

Simo, for his part, spends most of his time looking into a variety of reflective surfaces and staring down a man that lives in the building across from them (who might be a pedophile). Hey, everybody needs something to do.

JAMES HELMSWORTH. MT, 8:45 pm Thursday, Feb. 12. WH, 6 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

stiletto-heel kick to the head. It continues apace, as either a bondage-sex farce gone batshit or a full-throated ode to the joy-sucking tedium of life.

A sad, bored Japanese sarariman (Nao Omori of Ichi the Killer), whose wife has gone catatonic, seeks not merely catharsis but utter escape from existence by entering an S&M compact in which dominatrices assail him at unannounced moments. After each comic drubbing, a beatific orgasm ensues. But sadly, even a good beating becomes tedious routine—and as in all aspects of life, there’s no escaping slavery once you’ve agreed to it.

Surely one of the most singular films of the fest, it’s the smartest dumb movie I’ve seen in ages. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. HT, 10:30 pm Friday, Feb. 13.

eration—late Gen-X’ers and early Millennials—the duo of Belle and Sebastian evokes kinetic anime landscapes and a Glaswegian indie-rock band, simultaneously; here, director Nicolas Vanier does right by Cécile Aubry’s tale of a boy and his Great Pyrenees dog in the deftly captured French Alps. The orphaned Sebastian befriends the much-maligned beast, who acts circles around an already talented cast. It’s 1943, and the Nazis maintain a tense presence in a small mountain village, where sheep are being picked off by forces unseen and someone in the village is moonlighting as a guide for Jewish refugees seeking the neutral embrace of Switzerland.

Concern for Belle’s safety pits young Sebastian against his adoptive family, namely the loving and grizzled César, who does not believe that an abused dog can ever truly be saved. Vanier, whose previous projects have been set in the likes of the Yukon and Siberia, begs to differ. RIHANNA WEISS. MT, 6:00 pm Friday, Feb. 13. WH, 12:30 pm Monday Feb. 16.

A [U.S.] This documentary follows

the Soviet Wayne Gretzky, Viacheslav “Slava” Fetisov (in Soviet Russia, Gretzky was the Canadian Slava!) and the players and coaches that surrounded him. The story filmmaker Gabe Polsky shares in Red Army is comedic, engaging and compelling.

What begins as a story about national sport bred in a harsh Cold War machine turns out to be an account of friendship, patriotism and the crisis of identity that came with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Fetisov, formerly Putin’s secretary of sport, is just as interesting for the questions he doesn’t answer as those he does. As a former KGB agent in charge of preventing players from defecting is interviewed, the agent’s ice cream-craving granddaughter (who has no idea what the KGB was) interrupts with a light, poignant ease.

Polsky provides a master class in realworld storytelling. PARKER HALL. C21, 3:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 14. WH, 8:45 pm Monday, Feb. 16.

Secrets of War

A [NETHERLANDS] They might be living in a small village in Nazioccupied Holland, but Tuur and Lambert are into the same stuff as any other kids: running through the woods, playing war and staring out the window during class. But as the occupation clamps down—thanks in part to the cooperation of the mayor, Lambert’s father, with the Nazis—the duo find it increasingly difficult to be kids. There’s also a new girl in town named Maartje whom they’re both crushing on. Director Dennis Bots’ careful camera work highlights this change, bringing the same streets from sunny and bucolic to gray and shadowy, as Lambert’s father tightens his iron fist. Bots also deserves credit for coaxing such understated performances out of children. JAMES HELMSWORTH. C21, 1 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

A- [FINLAND] Simo’s brother, Ilkka, is

The Fool

A- [RUSSIA] A plumber-turnedengineer fights with his town’s elite to save the lives of 800 innocent wife beaters, criminals and addicts through his attempts to evacuate a building that will collapse in 24 hours or less. Themes of semi-cannibalistic post-Soviet worldviews are nothing new to contemporary Russian cinema, but Yuriy Bykov’s film is a brilliantly fast-paced examination of integrity in a town that can’t remember the word—and is angered to be reminded it exists in the first place.

Beautifully shot, gritty, and with a plot that doesn’t beat you over the head with its ideology, The Fool presents an interesting and demoralizing view of a society that blurs the line between sociopathy and leadership, where hope is a flickering flame quickly extinguished by the powerful. PARKER HALL. RT, 9 pm Wednesday, Feb. 11.

FT, 5:45 pm Friday, Feb. 13.

A- [JAPAN] R100 begins with a swift

Today

A- [IRAN] “I don’t want your money. I want lunch,” explains Youness, a gruff cabbie of few words and even fewer facial expressions, when he kicks out a fare two blocks before his destination. So begins Tod ay, Iran’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Youness is a man of unexplained motives. The action begins when pregnant young woman who looks to have been beaten slips into his backseat. “Take me to the hospital,” says the confused and weak Seddiqeh Azizi, flitting in and out of clarity. A single woman with no male to accompany her, Azizi is terrified the hospital will turn her away. Things slip into a dreamlike state. To director Reza Mirkarimi’s credit, the film doesn’t provide any obvious answers for why Youness does any of this. Instead, we are left in the ample silence afforded

by Tod ay’s laconic protagonist to ponder parenthood, society’s judgment and the importance of helping a stranger in need. JOHN LOCANTHI. FT, 6 pm Thursday Feb. 12.

B+ [FRANCE] To a very specific gen-

I Am Big Bird

B+ [U.S.] At 81, Carroll Spinney still shoulders the great, bright burden of playing Big Bird. After the success of 2011’s Being Elmo, it was perhaps time for an exhaustive documentary about the man behind an even more iconic Sesame Street resident. I Am Big Bird largely delivers, providing a loving portrait of Spinney’s personal and professional highs and lows, from his timid early days finding his footing as what was more of a dopey ostrich type than the outgoing, childlike fowl the character would become. The documentary is complete with plenty of odd and harrowing trivia: Did you know that lastminute logistical issues saved Spinney from being on board the doomed Challenger space shuttle in 1986? Or that a murder was committed on his property in 2005? But arguably more gripping is the behind-the-beak look at the physically perilous process of

In Order of Disappearance

B+ [NORWAY] In terms of genrebending, Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland’s In Order of Disappearance has impossibly lofty goals. The story of a mild-mannered plowman (Stellan Skarsgård) who goes all Harry Brown on a eccentric drug dealer’s lackeys and ignites a war with a Serbian cartel, the film strives to be a lot of things. But, remarkably, it pulls the high-wire act off beautifully, combining influences as wideranging as the Coen Brothers and Ben Wheatley to achieve a balance between pitch-black comedy, bloodsoaked revenge thriller, family drama and stylized—but not too stylized— crime yarn. Anchored by a brooding performance by the ever-reliable Skarsgård, In Order of Disappearance is a rarity in the post-Tarantino landscape: A film that knows the difference between paying homage and outright ripping off its cinematic forebears.

The film may be icy at its core—both in its portrayal of vengeance and in its increasingly spattered canvas—but it catches fire early and smolders until the credits. AP KRYZA. WH, 8:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 12. FT, 12:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

August Winds

B- [BRAZIL] In a small, coastal village, two adolescents, Shirley (Dandara de Morais) and Jeison (Geová Manoel dos Santos), find themselves exploring love, life, and loss as high tide washes a morbid discovery ashore. They also have a whole lot of sex on a giant pile of coconuts. August Winds is the fictional feature debut of documentary filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro, and it’s gorgeous. While the movie has elements of humor and romance on

CONT. on page 54

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

53

PIFF

COURTESY OF 4L

pened. JAMES HELMSWORTH. FT, 3:15 pm Saturday, Feb. 14. WTC, 8:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

OTHERS Life in a Fishbowl

jauja top of the themes of love and death, the film is first and foremost a visual treat. Every shot shows off Brazil’s natural beauty alongside well-honed, symbolic imagery. If you’re looking to get lost in a story or fall in love, you may want to miss this one; but if you want to get high and watch something beautiful without worrying about paying too much attention, this is definitely the film for you. CURTIS COOK. WH, 9 pm Saturday, Feb. 14.

MT, 6 pm Tuesday, Feb. 17.

Beloved Sisters

B- [GERMANY] We may never know how much poetic license this biopic takes as it cribs from rumors of the day and a lone, unburned letter to tell the tale of one sexy social experiment. It’s the late 18th century, and young pauper-philosopher Friedrich Schiller is entranced by both Caroline and Charlotte von Lengefeld, lowlevel aristocratic sisters whose preternaturally close relationship presents a compelling argument for going poly. When Caroline was forced into a loveless, lucrative marriage to bolster her family’s stock, Charlotte promised to never leave her alone, and that they would share everything. So much the better for Schiller, but—as the at times experimental, at times lushly conventional pastoral drama demonstrates—love triangles are rarely equilateral. In Schiller’s case, the artistic life, the mundanity of daily existence and a sister-partner whose charisma lags in the third act, can all conspire to upset what looked to be an ideal arrangement. RIHANNA WEISS. C21, 6:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 11. MT, 7 pm Saturday, Feb. 14.

Dearest

B- [HONG KONG] All too many

child abduction stories focus solely on the getting the child back—often with plenty of ultraviolence along the way—but they leave out the reintegration process once the child is back. Dearest aims at telling the entire story. Splitting the narrative into two halves accomplishes that feat. It opens with a young child, Pengpeng, disappearing while going to the park with friends. The desperate (and divorced) parents search for him, even joining a support group for parents with missing children. When they do find him years later, the parents run in and grab him. Director Peter Ho-Sun Chan resists the temptation to make this a moment of triumph. Instead, we see the pain and torment of Pengpeng’s adoptive mother as her son is stolen from her. The parents have regained their son; a mother has lost her son.

This is a nuanced film that asks its viewers to analyze the problem on a deeper level…at least until the Sarah Maclachlan infomercial for abused animals-style final credits. “The problem with this country is that people are unable to see life from other people’s eyes,” remarks one lawyer trying to help with an adoption case. JOHN LOCANTHI. WH, 8:15 pm Friday, Feb. 13. FT, 6:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

Jauja

B- [ARGENTINA-DENMARK-FRANCE] Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja is a somewhat unsettling experience. Filmed in a 4:3 aspect ratio with rounded corners lends an antiquated look to this late19th-century story. The sharp definition and bright colors, made more so set against the brown backdrop of Argentina, reveals it to be very much

a modern picture. But Jauja is a film that forces you to expand your attention from what you are seeing to how you are seeing it. Danish engineer Gunnar Dinesen (Viggo Mortensen) has come to Patagonia with his daughter to aid the Argentine military’s brutal Conquest of the Desert.

His daughter runs away. He rushes off into the desert after her. While the camera occasionally pivots, it is mostly static throughout. Characters wander on- and offscreen, shifting the focus to the vast, imperious landscape.

The film itself lacks much in the way of story and dialogue. Not that you’ll notice when watching this ponderous acid trip. JOHN LOCANTHI. RT, 5:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 12. C21, 8:30 pm Monday, Feb. 16.

Maidan

B- [UKRAINE] Within the first hour

of Maidan, you hear the Ukrainian national anthem at least three times, twice sung by a crowd in Kiev’s Independence Square (in Ukrainian, Maidan Nezalezhnosti, which gives both the movie and the Euromaidan political party their names), filmed with roughly the same shot. There are lot of still crowds with voices haranguing them from offscreen. The second half of the documentary— which follows the Ukranian Revolution from late 2013 through early 2014—is a mess of riot shields, fires and calls for medical attention. With only a handful of title cards, no voice-over and no narration, Maidan is less the archetypal, investigative documentary and more an effort to capture the sights and emotions of the revolution. Accordingly, a lot of it is pretty slow—there’s no revelation in a bunch of people standing in the Maidan or staring down cops. But it’s what hap-

C+ [FINLAND] Set in a town in Iceland, Life in a Fishbowl follows three separate, intertwining storylines about loss and redemption, old wounds healed and new ones suffered.

The film opens with 20-something blonde Eik as she pulls her hood over her head and walks into a house party to meet her john. The camera focuses on her blank, somewhat bored expression as the man has his way with her.

Fishbowl also follows Móri, a sort of Icelandic Bukowski, and an ambitious yuppie banker, Sölvi. The problem with the film is not one of acting or direction, it is one of format. Móri’s story of drunken regret and friendship with Eik is beautifully told. It’s just saddled with two significantly less interesting stories. Giving equal weight to all three and overemphasizing the interconnectedness of these characters leaves the viewers with a meandering, only intermittently engaging film. JOHN LOCANTHI. MT, 8:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 11. C21, 12:30 pm Saturday, Feb.14.

Factory Girl

C [EGYPT] Patriarchy is alive and well in the sweatshops of Cairo. When a 21-year-old virgin encounters her new boss, she takes it upon herself to make him fall for her. The story takes a harsh turn into woman-shaming when a positive pregnancy test is discovered in the factory restroom. Factory Girl doesn’t use this to its advantage, portraying a horribly dense and anti-feminist plot, in which men and women put beliefs before reason and a victim refuses to stand up for herself.

PARKER HALL. WH, 8:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 15. MT, 3:30 pm Monday, Feb. 16.

Horse Money

C [PORTUGAL] An immigrant from Cape Verde is stuck in a hospital in Lisbon. There are a lot of beautiful, chiaroscuro shots. There are also ventriloquistic Mr. Statue soldiers in an elevator, knife fights in the woods, and the same lines repeated over and over. I have no idea what is going on.

JAMES HELMSWORTH. FT, 8:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 17.

Jalanan

C [INDONESIA-NETHERLANDS-U.S.] Boni, Ho and Titi are three resilient and hilarious buskers on the streets and buses of Jakarta. Jalanan is calling out for less hodge-podge organization and any production values whatsoever.

MITCH LILLIE. WTC, 6:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 14. C21, 12:30 pm Monday, Feb. 16.

The Liberator

C [VENEZUELA] A revisionist conspiracy-theory-as-fact account of

Venezuelan revolutionary Simón Bolívar, The Liberator treads familiar ground to fans of films like Michael Collins and Braveheart. Édgar Ramírez makes for a believably inspirational Bolívar, but The Liberator focuses on the broader story of his military campaign and leaves the characters underdeveloped. Fans of period pieces about freedom fighters might enjoy The Liberator, but it fails to achieve the rousing and inspiring highs of other films in the genre.

Also, Wikipedia tells me most of the story told in the film is bullshit. EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH. FT, 8:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 12. C21, 6 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

Cowboys

C- [CROATIA] A quirky tale about small-town Croatian misfits putting on a Western musical (think Hamlet 2, but with John Wayne references), Cowboys proves that comedy is the most difficult genre to translate across cultures. Especially when much of the humor is derived from cultural references specific to a region. But also when it’s not very funny to begin with.

AP KRYZA. MT, 1 pm Saturday, Feb. 14.

FT, 3:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

The President

C- [GEORGIA-FRANCE] A dictator is overthrown in an unnamed, seemingly former Soviet bloc nation. He and his annoyingly naive grandson try to make their way out of the country, through assimilation with the very people that he tortured, starved or otherwise ruined. It’s a dark, graphic story that beats you over the head with its notso-shocking message: Tyranny is bad.

PARKER HALL. MT, 6:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 15. FT, 5:45 pm Tuesday, Feb. 17.

Eyes of a Thief

D+ [PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES] Despite this country’s long and storied involvement with the IsraelPalestine conflict, we don’t hear many Palestinian voices. There is plenty of criticism of Israeli policy to be sure.

But there is no Palestinian Munich.

While Eyes of a Thief certainly isn’t going to be nominated for a slew of awards like the former, it is an interesting look at life on the other side of the security checkpoint. The film opens with Tareq (played by Brendan Fraser’s nonunion Palestinian equivalent) being treated for a gunshot wound in a church. He gets arrested.

Ten years later, he’s released and sets off in search of his daughter. The larger conflict hangs over the film like a pall—the protagonist offers an antioccupation speech, bullying Israeli soldiers asking for papers, someone jokes about overzealous Israeli prison guards, etc. If nothing else, it is a different, albeit bellicose, viewpoint. It’s too bad the Palestinian submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is a few missing scenes away from telling a coherent story. JOHN LOCANTHI. WTC, 9 pm Saturday, Feb. 14. C21, 8:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 17.

COURTESY OF NW FILM CENTER

MOVIES

PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL TICKET OUTLET: Portland Art Museum’s Mark Building, 1119 SW Park Ave., 276-4310, nwfilm.org.

General admission, $12; Art Museum and OMSI members, students and seniors, $11; children 12 and under, $9; Silver Screen Club memberships from $400.

THEATERS: C21: Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave. FT: Regal Fox Tower, 846 SW Park Ave. HT: Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd.

MT: Moreland Theater, 6712 SE Milwaukie Blvd.

RT: Roseway Theater, 7229 NE Sandy Blvd.

WH: Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave. WTC: World Trade Center Theater, 121 SW Salmon St. WW was unable to screen some films by press deadlines; visit wweek.com for full listings. horse money 54

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

FEB. 11–17 SCRIPT

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

TONY MAGNOTTI

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.

OPENING THIS WEEK Fifty Shades of Grey

E.L. James’ steamy novel makes the leap from immensely popular Twilight fanfic to the silver screen.

Unfortunately, it screened after press time, so be sure to check out John Locanthi’s review at wweek.com. R. Showing at most Portland-area theaters.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

This movie about British secret agent who is totally not James Bond screened after press deadlines.

Look for John Locanthi’s review at wweek.com. R. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, St. Johns.

STILL SHOWING American Sniper

D Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) lies with his gun on a rooftop in Iraq. In his sights is a boy holding a grenade, approaching American troops. It’s up to him: kill a child or see his friends slaughtered. The real-life Chris Kyle killed more than 250 people as an “overwatch” sniper. American Sniper provides a chance to explore the man behind these facts, starting with Kyle’s childhood, moving to the anger and patriotism that drove him from being a reckless rodeo rider to a Navy SEAL, and exploring the struggles of being a married man serving abroad. But Director Clint Eastwood is uninterested in nuance. As with the opening scene, the movie resolves every complication as soon as it’s raised. Kyle pulls the trigger every time. R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Lloyd Center, St Johns.

Big Eyes

B- For Margaret Keane, “eyes are the window to the soul.” At least, that’s the drivel the artist (a blond-wigged Amy Adams) has to deliver in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes, a biopic that winds up wanting for both vision and soul.

Art critics lambasted the work as sentimental kitsch, but the public adored it. And Margaret got none of the credit. Her husband, Walter (Christoph Waltz)—a charming huckster and selfdeluded egotist—presented himself as the artist. Big Eyes is often tiresome, and Burton skims over thorny questions—the populist craze for kitsch, gendered expectations in art, the line between highbrow and lowbrow. PG13. REBECCA JACOBSON. Academy Theater, Laurelhurst Theater.

Big Hero 6

A Shelving wordy cleverness for its own sake, ignoring parental intrusion, and allowing moral lessons to develop organically through a simplified storyline, Big Hero 6 is that rarest thing: an animated children’s adventure designed purely to delight its target audience. Substantial swaths of the picture are devoted to nothing loftier than portraying just how unstoppably cool soaring on the back of your own robot would feel. PG. JAY HORTON. Academy Theater, Clackamas, Mission, Mt. Hood, Valley.

Birdman

B- If Birdman’s message is that the

theater, specifically Broadway, is the home of high art and Hollywood a place of debased, greed-driven entertainment, Alejandro González Iñárritu doesn’t make a convincing—or even amusingly satirical—argument. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Cornelius, Edgefield, Hollywood Theatre.

Black or White

Kevin Costner plays an alcoholic lawyer who suddenly gets custody of his biracial granddaughter, and then winds up battling the child’s paternal grandmother (Octavia Spencer) to keep it. Grantland’s Wesley Morris called it “tiresome” and “preposterous,” deeming it Tyler Perry’s Crash.

Not screened for Portland critics. PG13. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Lloyd Center.

Black Sea

B- Jude Law and his merry band of misfits search for sunken Soviet gold in Black Sea, a recession drama in the guise of a submarine thriller.

Refreshingly bare-bones, Kevin Macdonald’s film is red meat for the 99 percent—and a much-needed reminder that midwinter at the multiplex isn’t always a dumpster fire. Nearly all the danger is internal, though the crushing vacuum that is the bottom of the sea is on everyone’s mind. R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Clackamas.

Boyhood

A Boyhood took 12 years, in film as

in life. For 12 years, director Richard Linklater shot the movie for a few weeks each summer as both the main character, a boy named Mason, and the actor, Ellar Coltrane, came of age, from 6 to 18. The epic undertaking has resulted in one of the most honest and absorbing representations of growing up ever put to film: all the tedium, all the wonder. R. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Cedar Hills.

The Boy Next Door

D An unintentionally funny thriller starring Jennifer Lopez as a teacher sleeps with a student-cum-violent stalker, the Boy Net Door displays all the patience you’d expect from director Rob Cohen, the man behind xXx and The Fast and the Furious.

Exhibiting behavior equal parts Some of the groan-worthy double entendres—“I love your mom’s cookies,” for one—suggest the film realizes its own ridiculousness. (And that’s not to mention the “first edition” of The Iliad.) It’s a pity the film doesn’t fully embrace camp to become an awesomely bad movie. Instead, it’s just a bad movie. R. JOHN LOCANTHI. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas.

The Dark Crystal

Frank Oz’s animated 1982 film, a surprisingly dark tale of morality, reptilian baddies and hunchbacked wizards. PG. Laurelhurst Theater.

Force Majeure

A- Force Majeure is a disaster movie

only with casualties emotional rather than physical. Many have seen the film as a commentary on gender roles, and director Ruben Östlund indeed told The New York Times he wanted to create “the most pathetic male character on film.” But Mars/Venus debates aside, Force Majeure is an incisive exploration of shame and cowardice. Östlund has applied slight CGI to the mountains, making them just a tad too impeccable, and the chic resort, with its blond wood and simple lines, is an IKEA answer to The Shining’s Overlook Hotel. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Laurelhurst Theater.

Gone Girl

B+ Gone Girl might be David Fincher’s

battiest work. The director has taken a lurid suspense yarn—the wildly popular novel by Gillian Flynn—and emerged with a film that deftly straddles the line between brilliant and stupid. It’s a media satire and a meditation on a volatile marriage that masquerades as the kind of plop you’d find Ashley Judd starring in back in the ’90s. It’s mesmerizing. R. AP KRYZA. Laurelhurst Theater, Valley.

FIFTY SHADES OF GUS THE MISSING TAMPON SCENE FROM THE DIRECTOR THAT COULD HAVE BEEN. The much-anticipated film adaptation of the mega-successful erotic fanfic novel Fifty Shades of Grey hits theaters this week. Fifty Shades, which entered this world as Twilight fan fiction, has sold more than 100 million copies. It’s only natural that this literary sensation has followed its inspiration onto the silver screen. While it looks deliciously trashy, it could have been so much more.

The book’s infamous tampon scene, for example, was left out of the film. Portland’s own cinematic auteur Gus Van Sant publicly expressed his desire to direct the adaptation. Alas, the production passed over the director of Good Will Hunting and the iconic Drugstore Cowboy for someone else.

Willamette Week managed to obtain a copy of Van Sant’s script. Because the film screened after our deadline, we’re reprinting that scene.

JOHN LOCANTHI. INT. WOMEN’S RESTROOM WITH LARGE WINDOW [ANASTASIA walks into the restroom and walks over to a stall. The sky is gray outside and rain is pouring down. Before she gets there, the door swings open and CHRISTIAN GREY walks in.]

CHRISTIAN GREY: When did you start your period, Anastasia?

ANASTASIA: Er…yesterday.

GREY: Good.

ANASTASIA: Goddamn it, Christian. Why ya wanna fuck now?

[GREY slowly approaches ANASTASIA. He grabs her.]

ANASTASIA (voice-over): Oh jeez, why did he have to follow me into the restroom? Holy fuck, I want him…but why here? Why now? What the fuck was he doin’? Jeez, was he on glue or something? Look at him, perverse as a pink pickle. My heartbeat sped up, and my womanhood drooled just thinking about that pickle. His breathing was ragged, so was mine.

GREY: Babe, it’s like a craps game. When ya hot, ya shoot the works. When ya not, ya don’t. Well, right

now, baby, I’m burnin’ up all over.

[GREY slides his right hand slowly down her waist to her thigh, then to the inside of her legs and up toward her INNER GODDESS. Cheesy SAX music starts playing.]

ANASTASIA: You don’t ever change, Christian.

GREY: You’re goddamn right I don’t. Why should I? ANASTASIA: Alright, buster, you’re so goddamn hot—jeez!—why don’t you take me into the stall and fuck me.

[GREY rips her BLOUSE and starts licking her tits.

ANASTASIA howls in pleasure. GREY grabs the blue string of her TAMPON and rips it out. Excessive amount of noticeably fake BLOOD oozes out.]

ANASTASIA (voice-over): It started as a warm itch that would surge along until my brain consumed it in a gentle explosion that started in the back of my inner goddess and rose rapidly until the whole world sympathized and took on a soft lofty appeal. [Camera focuses on ANASTASIA’s face with floating tampons superimposed on the shot.] Everything was grand then. Your worst enemy wasn’t so bad. Everything took on the rosy hue of unlimited success. You could do no wrong. And as long as it lasted, life was beautiful.

[Two minutes later…]

GREY: Oh, Ana. Oh, baby!

ANASTASIA: Whoa.

[GREY is done, pulls out and sprays his semen on her back in a sexual way.]

ANASTASIA (voice-over): I come loudly, gripping onto the sink for dear life. There’s nothing more life-affirming than a good fuck. Will it always be like this? So overwhelming, so all-consuming, so bewildering and beguiling.

GREY: Now, just act cool...like we just got back from church or something. I’m not takin’ on no girlfriend. You take it and you get out.

ANASTASIA (voice-over): I wanted to talk, but… well, you grow up, you know? You think it’s all gonna be like a fairy tale. Like you’re Sleeping Beauty, and along comes this Prince Charming, and he looks at you, and it’s night time, and he smiles at you, and yadda yadda yadda. But instead you meet your hot boss who rips out your tampon and fucks you in a public restroom.

CONT. on page 56 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

55

FEB. 11–17 JAAP BUITENDIJK

MOVIES

KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE

The Gambler

C Mark Wahlberg plays Jim

MUSIC PG. 37

FIND A PAPER

Bennett, an eccentric college professor by day and compulsive gambling junkie by night. He has a strained relationship with his mother (Jessica Lange) and a romance with a precocious student (Brie Larsen), to whom he reveals there’s more to him than his hardliving, suicidally risk-addicted exterior lets on. Trouble is, despite Wahlberg’s best efforts, it’s impossible to care about Bennett. He’s a horrible piece of shit. R. AP KRYZA. Academy Theater.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

B+ Our hero, M. Gustave, is the

dapper concierge running the Grand Budapest front desk and back halls. He’s played by Ralph Fiennes with such flowery cosmopolitanism that you can almost see the cloud of cologne drifting behind him as he scurries to his next boudoir appointment with a rich dowager. I’d love to recite an ode to The Grand Budapest Hotel, but I can’t shake the feeling that something’s missing. . R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

B+ The unnecessary Hobbit trilogy comes to a close. PG-13. MICHAEL NORDINE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas.

The Homesman

B+ Mary (Hilary Swank) remains

single because she is “too bossy and too damn plain.” When her town needs an intrepid volunteer to transport three mentally ill women to Iowa and none of the men step forward, she takes on the task. As a director, Jones captures stark and disturbing moments with a matterof-factness that’s neither overstated nor flippantly casual. R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Academy Theater.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

B- The first half of The Hunger Games’ concluding installment.

PG-13. MICHAEL NORDINE. Academy Theater, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst Theater, Mission.

The Imitation Game

B Full of childhood flashbacks,

Find all oF our WW Box locations at wweek.com/findapaper 56

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

handsome sets, sharp zingers and a careful dash of devastation, the Imitation Game takes a prickly prodigy—Turing pioneered the field of computer science and helped crack Nazi codes—and places him in an eminently (and sometimes overly) palatable picture. PG-13.

REBECCA JACOBSON. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, CineMagic, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Lloyd Center.

Inherent Vice

A In Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas

Anderson’s rollicking adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009

novel, the beaches of ’70s Los Angeles are populated with human flotsam. Hippies, Nazis, bikers, junkies, whores, Manson acolytes, dentists, cops, criminals and all manner of freaks commingle in the grimy tide pools. A pot-addled former doper named Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) whose ex, Shasta (Katherine Waterston), disappears before tipping him off about a plot to overthrow a powerful construction magnate. It takes very little time for the core mystery to take a backseat to the lunatic characters that Doc—played with ethereal charisma by a never-better Phoenix— encounters. R. AP KRYZA. Cinema 21, St. Johns.

Into the Woods

B+ Stephen Sondheim’s much-

loved musical has finally made it to the big screen. The film is divided into halves: the first full of payoffs and the second full of inescapable relationship truths and romantic boredom. Though timid—it waters down forest sex to an agonized make-out scene in the pines—Disney’s long-shelved adaptation is still a beautiful compromise. And hell, the mash-up of cautionary fairy tales is fun, with the Witch (Meryl Streep) pushing a young couple (James Corden and Emily Blunt) to undo a family curse they inherited.

PG. SAUNDRA SORENSON. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Oak Grove.

Jupiter Ascending

B There’s not a recognizable idea to be found in the whole of Jupiter Acending’s grand space opera/ cartoon. A plotline does exist, though the movie dispenses with the important bits as swiftly as possible. We’re scarcely introduced to Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), plucky cleaning woman with a penchant for stargazing, before floating wraiths, blue-haired bounty hunters, and dashingly feral disgraced soldier Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) appear on her trail. A wholly illogical fairy-tale denouement that leaves little expectation of sequels. Mad they may be, but the Wachowskis aren’t stupid. PG-13.

JAY HORTON. Showing at most Portland-area theaters.

The Loft

Five married men decide to go in on a penthouse loft so they’ll have have somewhere to engage in all their sordid, secret love affairs.

What could go wrong? A dead body, you say? Yikes. Not screened for Portland critics. R. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Cornelius, Lloyd Center.

Mortdecai

Johnny Depp has a mustache. Not screened for Portland critics. R. Kennedy School, Valley.

A Most Violent Year

B Tthe fi lm takes place in 1981 New York, one of the most crimeridden years in the city’s history.

From the long takes and fl uid

camera movements to the color palette—icy blue nights, washedout industrial zones and the yellow glow of dark restaurants full of sinister men—the fi lm could easily be mistaken for a vintage production. The story’s brooding, heavy heart is an ambitious Colombian immigrant named Abel—played by rising star Oscar Isaac with the looks and ferocity of a young Al Pacino—who seeks to expand his sketchy heating-oil business despite near-constant hijackings of his trucks. This is a slow, methodical character study whose title belies a relatively bloodless story. R . AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Clackamas.

Mr. Turner

B+ Known as “the painter of light,”

J.M.W. Turner created some of the world’s most awe-inspiring artwork.

His landscapes are by turns frightful and beautiful, and the same goes for Mr. Turner. It’s a warts-andall view of a frequently unpleasant man, as mired in the muck and disease of 19th-century England as in the arresting scenery that inspired Turner’s art. There’s little Turner wouldn’t give to his art, including his own saliva. Rather than looking down his nose at these philistines, director Mike Leigh is more interested in how this criticism affected Turner. He becomes an object of derision near the end of his career, a punch line for vulgar stage acts. R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Cinema 21.

Nightcrawler

B+ Jake Gyllenhaal’s Lou Bloom is

terrifying. Not so much for what he does, but for what he represents: He’s sensationalistic and exploitative media personified. The title of Dan Gilroy’s debut feature refers to the lecherous freelance cameramen who prowl city streets, their ears trained to police scanners so they can get to gruesome crime scenes before help arrives and shoot the carnage, tragedy and response as it all unfolds. What makes Lou such a fascinating and terrifying beast isn’t rooted in traditional cinematic tropes of violence. It’s his extreme disconnect and lack of conscience: He sees nothing wrong with moving a still-breathing victim into better light to improve his shot.

R. AP KRYZA. Academy, Laurelhurst Theater.

Oscar-Nominated Shorts

There are lots of really, truly terrible short films out there. Then there are the shorts that get nominated for Oscars. Valley.

Paddington

The cuddly, floppy hat-wearing bear gets his own live-action feature. PG. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Lloyd Center.

Penguins of Madagascar

The besuited birds are back, trying to prevent an evil octopus from taking over the world. WW was too

feb. 11–17

Project Almanac

Teenagers build a time machine.

Things don’t go as planned. Not screened for Portland critics. PG-13.

Cedar Hills, Easport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Lloyd Center.

Selma

A- Selma, Ava DuVernay’s drama about three 1965 civil rights marches in Alabama, is not perfect, but it arrives at a historic moment that will leave only the most blinkered viewer feeling chuffed about the superiority of the present to the past. Violence here is never aestheticized for its own sake, but brought to life so that we might understand its escalation and impact. The film is transfixing, but not easy to watch. And it should not be easy to watch. PG-13. CHRIS STAMM. Cedar Hills, Hollywood Theatre, Lloyd Center.

Top Five

A- Chris Rock took way too long to

play himself in a movie. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say he took far too long to make a movie that sounds like he does. That’s the immediate thing to leap out about Top Five, the third film the comic has written, directed and starred in but the first to come across as a true Chris Rock joint. R. MATTHEW SINGER. Laurelhurst Theater.

Whiplash

B+ Whiplash clefts music from

dance, love and spirituality. What’s left is muscle, red and raw, beating faster and faster against a drum.

Damien Chazelle’s beautiful but troubling film centers on a battle of egos and tempos, as Andrew (Miles Teller) must decide how much of himself and his sanity he’s willing

to give to music. Teller gives a close-to-the-chest performance.

JK Simmons is certainly horrifying as his instructor. And here’s where Whiplash is most troubling: It views the abusive instructor as a necessary evil for creating great art. This flies in the face not just of morality but of history. . R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Cedar Hills.

Wild

A- Reese Witherspoon trudges

north in Wild, the film adaptation of Portlander Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir about hiking 1,100 miles from scorched California to soggy Oregon. . R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Lloyd Center.

REVIEW S H AY N E L AV E R D I E R E

hung over to make the Saturdaymorning screening. PG. Kennedy School, Mt. Hood, Valley.

MOVIES

Seventh Son

A- A fantasty that reunites Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

We rewatched the Big Lebowski instead. PG-13. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Evergreen, Lloyd Center.

Slaughter Nick for President

St. Vincent

B- Under most circumstances, his debut, St. Vincent, would be blasted for its contrived, overwrought plot.

But luckily for director Theodore Melfi, that crusty bastard is played

by Bill Murray. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Laurelhurst Theater.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

B Maybe it’s the titular character’s manic—nay, demented—laugh.

Or maybe it’s the cavalier way the writers sneak in references to Mad Max and The Shining amid the wholesomeness. Let’s just say there’s a reason The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water will still be showing after your kids’ bedtime.

The quest to recover the lost Krabby Patty Secret Formula by SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) and Plankton spans time and space in what feels somewhere between an extended episode and a half-baked animated feature.

PG. JOHN LOCANTHI. Showing at most Portland-area theaters.

Strange Magic

An animated film inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In other words, time to introduce your babies to the Bard. PG. Eastport, Clackamas, Oak Grove.

Taken 3

Somehow, there are still some ambiguously ethnic throats left in the world that Liam Neeson hasn’t chopped. He completes his hammer-punching campaign in this final (praise be!) chapter in the Taken franchise. PG-13. Clackamas.

The Theory of Everything

B- A brief history of Stephen Hawking’s 30-year marriage to Jane Wilde, The Theory of Everything fits a tad too snugly into the biopic tradition. Here, Hawking’s contributions to the fields of physics and cosmology take a backseat to the story of his and Wilde’s courtship, marriage and eventual divorce. PG-13.

MICHAEL NORDINE. Cedar Hills.

mothEr and child rEunion: anne dorval and antoine-olivier Pilon.

MOMMY

Clinging to hope in a hard-living Canada.

Xavier Dolan’s Québécois, Cannes Jury Prize-winning opus, Mommy, opens with a weathered but well-manicured hand reaching for a red apple, while what looks to be a child’s undergarments blow softly on a background clothesline. Contrasted with a post-opening-credit set of title cards explaining a law that gives parents the right to institutionalize minors against their will, the image is heavy-handed yet impossible to turn away from. So goes the rest of the film, which requires an often-tiring suspension of disbelief but rewards with a portrait of grit and raw emotion.

The hand belongs to Diane (Anne Dorval), a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, dingy-apartment-dwelling single mother who is regaining possession of Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon), her delinquent son, after the teen set fire to the cafeteria of his detention center. Diane doesn’t have much, but she does have hope. Steve calls her “bitch” and “ho,” grabs her breasts, and blows cigarette smoke in her face. “Imma protect you,” Steve blusters (the subtitle editors did a terrific job), and Diane believes him, because it would be too painful not to.

An interruption to Steve and Diane’s dysfunctional dyad comes in the form of Kyla (Suzanne Clément), a new neighbor, who helps bandage Steve’s leg after he runs outside during one of his many destructive rages. Kyla is an enigmatic presence throughout; of her station in life she will only say she’s “on sabbatical.” (Her involvement with the family also represents one of the film’s most frustrating inconsistencies; most solidly middle-class women wouldn’t respond to the sudden acquisition of hard-living neighbors by abandoning her family for long stretches to drink boxed wine, smoke and allow a teenage punk to feel her up, but perhaps things are different in Canada.) Eventually Kyla attempts to home-school Steve, but even her buoying presence isn’t enough for Diane’s hope to bear fruit.

At Mommy’s end, a slightly manic Diane meets with Kyla for what is probably the last time. Diane glances outside at her apple tree, the fruit now riddled with bugs: “You know, Kyla, this world ain’t got a lot of hope. I’d like to think it’s full of hopeful people, hoping all day long. ’Cause us hopeful people can change things.” And we believe her, because it would be too painful not to.

KAT MERCK. B SEE it: Mommy is rated R. It opens Friday at Living Room Theaters.

SCOOP P.G. 30

B Since it first aired, Tropical Heat has been a cult hit in the Balkan republic, with fans considering Slaughter a hero. Slaughter Nick for President follows the show’s star, charming and humble Rob Stewart, as he visits Serbia, where he’s greeted by mobs of adoring fans, appears on a game show, plays guitar with a punk band and is generally worshiped as royalty. Like the singer Rodriguez, who was.

AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas.

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

57

Fifty Shades Of Grey (R) 12:05PM 1:00PM 3:10PM 4:00PM 6:15PM 7:05PM 9:20PM 10:10PM Kingsman: The Secret Service (R) 11:20AM 1:00PM 2:30PM 4:10PM 5:45PM 7:20PM 8:55PM 10:30PM Jupiter Ascending 3D (PG-13) 12:15PM 1:40PM 3:15PM 6:20PM 9:20PM 10:45PM Jupiter Ascending (PG-13) 10:40AM 4:45PM 7:45PM American Sniper (R) 1:10PM 4:20PM 7:30PM 9:40PM 10:40PM Project Almanac (PG-13) 11:25AM 2:10PM 4:55PM 7:40PM 10:25PM Selma (PG-13) 1:40PM 7:35PM Paddington (PG) 11:15AM 2:00PM 4:30PM 7:10PM Wild (R) 10:50AM 4:40PM 10:35PM Old Fashioned (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:50PM 4:40PM 7:30PM 10:20PM

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (PG) 12:30PM 3:00PM 5:30PM 8:00PM 10:30PM Wedding Ringer, The (R) 11:50AM 2:35PM 5:15PM 7:55PM 10:35PM The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 3D (PG) 11:10AM 1:45PM 4:15PM 6:45PM 9:15PM Seventh Son 3D (PG-13) 12:00PM 1:20PM 2:40PM 4:00PM 5:20PM 8:00PM 10:40PM Seventh Son (PG-13) 10:40AM 6:40PM 9:30PM Black or White (PG-13) 10:55AM 1:55PM 4:50PM 7:50PM 10:45PM Imitation Game, The (PG-13) 10:45AM 1:35PM 4:25PM 7:15PM 10:05PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies 3D (PG-13) 3:40PM 7:00PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (PG-13) 12:20PM 10:20PM

Paddington (PG) 11:30AM 2:00PM 4:30PM Project Almanac (PG-13) 7:15PM 10:00PM The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (PG) 11:30AM 2:00PM 4:30PM 7:00PM 9:30PM Oscar 2015: Selma (PG-13) 10:00PM Selma (PG-13) 11:00AM 2:00PM Temper (Great India Films) (NR) 7:00PM 10:20PM The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 3D (PG) 12:30PM 3:00PM 5:30PM 8:00PM 10:30PM Seventh Son 3D (PG-13) 11:30AM Seventh Son (PG-13) 2:05PM Black or White (PG-13) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM

Fifty Shades Of Grey (R) 10:40AM 11:30AM 12:30PM 1:35PM 2:30PM 3:30PM 4:30PM 5:30PM 6:30PM 7:30PM 8:30PM 9:30PM 10:30PM Oscar 2015: Birdman (R) 7:00PM American Sniper (R) 12:00PM 3:10PM 7:00PM 10:10PM Imitation Game, The (PG-13) 11:15AM 2:00PM 4:45PM 7:30PM 10:20PM Jupiter Ascending (PG-13) 11:30AM 2:30PM 8:30PM Kingsman: The Secret Service (R) 10:45AM 12:15PM 1:45PM 3:15PM 4:45PM 6:15PM 7:45PM 9:15PM 10:45PM Into The Woods (PG) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM Jupiter Ascending 3D (PG-13) 1:00PM 4:00PM 5:30PM 7:00PM 10:00PM

Paddington (PG) 11:40AM 2:10PM 4:40PM 7:10PM 9:40PM

C’est Si Bon (CJ Entertainment) (NR) 11:40AM 2:30PM 5:20PM 8:10PM Fifty Shades Of Grey (R) 11:20AM 1:00PM 2:30PM 4:00PM 5:45PM 7:15PM 9:00PM 10:30PM Jupiter Ascending (PG-13) 11:05AM 2:15PM 5:25PM 8:35PM American Sniper (R) 12:55PM 4:00PM 7:05PM 10:10PM Into The Woods (PG) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM Jupiter Ascending 3D (PG-13) 12:40PM 3:50PM 7:00PM 10:10PM Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies (PG-13) 12:30PM 7:20PM Imitation Game, The (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:45PM 4:30PM 7:15PM 10:00PM

Fifty Shades Of Grey XD (R) 10:45AM 1:45PM 4:45PM 7:45PM 10:45PM

Project Almanac (PG-13) 3:45PM 10:35PM Wild (R) 11:15AM 2:00PM 4:45PM 7:30PM 10:15PM Kingsman: The Secret Service (R) 10:50AM 12:15PM 2:00PM 3:30PM 5:15PM 6:45PM 8:30PM 10:00PM The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water 3D (PG) 12:45PM 3:10PM 5:35PM 8:00PM 10:25PM The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (PG) 11:35AM 2:15PM 4:55PM 7:40PM 10:15PM Seventh Son 3D (PG-13) 11:15AM 5:00PM 10:35PM Seventh Son (PG-13) 2:05PM 7:45PM

FRIDAY

58

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

AP FILM STUDIES

C O U R T E S Y O F WA R N E R B R O S .

MOVIES

RULES OF ATTRACTION CASABLANCA AND THE SCIENCE OF LOVE.

BY A P KRYZA

apkryza@wweek.com

It’s easy to look at a seemingly mismatched couple and scoff, wondering what the hell such a goodlooking person would see in a person of less-desirable genetic stock. Throughout the history of film, audiences have seen haggard-looking older leading men paired with gorgeous younger women.

Turns out the depiction of attraction and lopsided pairings in film isn’t all that far from reality, whether we want to admit it or not. We’re neurologically predisposed toward digging certain people, and OMSI’s Reel Science series is showing Casablanca as an example (OMSI’s Empirical Theater; 6:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 11).

And boy, does Casablanca feature one of filmdom’s most classic, seemingly mismatched romances between Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa—a gorgeous Norwegian woman in the prime of life—and Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine, a cafe owner 16 years her senior who looks like a cross between a cocker spaniel and the Phantom of the Opera reimagined as the Marlboro man.

But according to Lawrence Sherman—the event’s moderator and a neurologist at Oregon Health & Science University—the attraction between these characters makes perfect sense from a scientific standpoint.

Sherman says his talk will take specific cues from the movie to illustrate how our brains process attraction. That’ll include an explanation of the brain’s increased production of dopamine, which signals pleasure and explains Rick and Ilsa’s seemingly drunken early infatuation. It will also address how Ilsa’s long-lost husband is positively affected by the hormones vasopressin and oxytocin, and why exactly Rick acts like such a dickhead to the mistress who adores him: “This is a situation called limerence and has some dark psychological implications,” says Sherman.

That’s a lot of science-speak, but the discussion should offer food for thought and a chance to rewatch a Hollywood classic on one of Portland’s best screens.

ALSO SHOWING: In 1972’s Horror Express, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Telly Savalas board a trans-Siberian train with a bloodthirsty prehistoric monster. Joy Cinema. 9 pm Wednesday, Feb. 11.

Movies in Black & White returns with Sidney Poitier’s epic bitch slap from In the Heat of the Night.

Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Thursday, Feb. 12.

For a while there, folks predicted that the gruesome camp musical Repo! The Genetic Opera would be the new Rocky Horror. It wasn’t. Kiggins Theatre. 10 pm Saturday, Feb. 14.

The good Dr. Sherman would have a field day with Harold and Maude. Laurelhurst Theater. Feb. 13-19.

The story of a charming prosti—er, society girl looking for love and unearned social status in New York while enjoying the horrifically racist antics of her bucktoothed Japanese landlord. Oh, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, you’re timeless. Academy Theater. Feb. 13-19.

The Hollywood continues its tradition of screening violent romances this year with Something Wild, a lurid tale of fake kidnapping, kinky sex and a very pissed-off Ray Liotta. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 14.

Whoever says there aren’t great roles for women in Hollywood obviously hasn’t seen Tootsie. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 14-15.

The Portland Black Film Fest continues with 1992’s Just Another Girl on the I.R.T., Leslie Harris’ story of a woman seeking to break the cycle of poverty in New York. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 15.

The Clinton celebrates Fat Tuesday with Dry Wood, Les Blank’s acclaimed documentary about life in Louisiana. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Tuesday, Feb. 17.

Spare and powerful, Andrew Haigh’s Weekend tells the moving story of a one-night stand between two men that blossoms into a drug-andalcohol-fueled romance. 5th Avenue Cinema. 5:30 and 9 pm Friday-Saturday and 3 pm Sunday, Feb. 13-15.

Repressed Cinema rolls out 16 mm Erotic Underground, a series of short films exploring the history of cinematic erotica. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 17.

MOVIES

COURTESY OF BENMAR PRODUCTIONS

FEB. 13–19

A REAL VISUAL TREAT: Horror Express plays Feb. 11 at Joy Cinema.

Regal Lloyd Center 10 & IMAX

1510 NE Multnomah St., FIFTY SHADES OF GREY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 12:40, 03:50, 07:00, 10:10 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: IOLANTA / DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE Sat 09:30 THE ROYAL BALLET - THE WINTER’S TALE Tue 07:00 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: IOLANTA / DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE ENCORE Wed 06:30

Regal Division Street Stadium 13

16603 SE Division St. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY Fri 11:30, 02:30, 04:30, 07:30, 10:30

Bagdad Theater

3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-249-7474 JUPITER ASCENDING FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:30, 03:30, 07:00, 10:15

Cinema 21

616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515 MR. TURNER Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 03:45, 07:00 INHERENT VICE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 03:30, 06:45, 09:35 MOTHERING INSIDE

Clinton Street Theater

2522 SE Clinton St., 503-238-8899 NO FILMS SHOWING TODAY Fri-Mon-Tue MATT SHEPARD IS A FRIEND OF MINE Sat 04:00 TOOTSIE Sat-Sun 07:00 THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW Sat 11:59 MALCOLM X Sat 07:00 I AM ELEVEN Wed 07:30

Laurelhurst Theatre & Pub

2735 E Burnside St., 503-232-5511 HAROLD AND MAUDE Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:15 INTERSTELLAR Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 06:15 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 09:30 NIGHTCRAWLER Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:40 FORCE MAJEURE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:30 BIG EYES Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 07:00 BIG HERO 6 Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon 01:30, 03:45 BOYHOOD Fri-SatSun-Mon 03:30 GONE GIRL Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 09:00 ST. VINCENT Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:45

Mission Theater and Pub

1624 NW Glisan St., 503-249-7474-5 REAR WINDOW Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:00 INTERSTELLAR Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:50 BIG HERO 6 Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 04:30

St. Johns Cinemas

8704 N Lombard St., 503-286-1768 FIFTY SHADES OF GREY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 04:30, 07:30, 10:20 KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 04:00, 07:00, 09:50

CineMagic Theatre

2021 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-7919 THE IMITATION GAME FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:35, 07:00

Kiggins Theatre

1011 Main St., 360-816-0352 THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015: ANIMATED Fri-SatSun-Tue 05:30 THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015: LIVE ACTION Fri-Sun-Tue 07:15 OSCAR NOMINATED DOCUMENTARY SHORTS PROGRAM A Fri-Sun-Mon 07:15 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015: DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM B Sat-Sun-Mon 05:30 REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA Sat 10:00

Regal Cinema 99 Stadium 11

HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:30, 07:20 INTO THE WOODS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:50, 01:45, 04:40, 07:35, 10:30 PADDINGTON FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:40, 02:10, 04:40, 07:10, 09:40 AMERICAN SNIPER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:55, 04:00, 07:05, 10:10 PROJECT ALMANAC FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 03:45, 10:35 SEVENTH SON Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 02:05, 07:45 SEVENTH SON 3D FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:15, 05:00, 10:35 THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:35, 02:15, 04:55, 07:40, 10:15 THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER 3D Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:45, 03:10, 05:35, 08:00, 10:25 KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:50, 12:15, 02:00, 03:30, 05:15, 06:45, 08:30, 10:00 FIFTY SHADES OF GREY Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:20, 01:00, 02:30, 04:00, 05:45, 07:15, 09:00, 10:30 C’EST SI BON Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 11:40, 02:30

Kennedy School Theater

5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-7474-4 BIG HERO 6 Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 05:30 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:30 INTERSTELLAR Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 08:00

Indoor Twin Cinemas

9010 NE Highway 99 FIFTY SHADES OF GREY Fri-Sat-Sun 12:00, 01:00, 04:00, 07:00, 09:40, 11:00 HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 2 MCFARLAND, USA

Highway 99W, 503-538-2738 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 FriSat 07:00 BIG HERO 6 Fri-Sat 07:00 NO FILMS SHOWING TODAY SunMon-Tue-Wed

Regal City Center Stadium 12

Empirical Theatre at OMSI

801 C St. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:00, 02:05, 04:35, 07:40, 10:05

Century 16 Eastport Plaza 4040 SE 82nd Ave. JUPITER ASCENDING Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 02:15, 05:25, 08:35 JUPITER ASCENDING 3D Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 11:05, 12:40, 03:50, 07:00, 10:10 THE IMITATION GAME Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:00, 01:45, 04:30, 07:15, 10:00 WILD Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 11:15, 02:00, 04:45, 07:30, 10:15 THE

1945 SE Water Ave., 503-797-4000 WILD OCEAN Fri-Sat-Sun 12:00, 03:30 FLIGHT OF THE BUTTERFLIES FriSat-Sun 10:00 JAMES CAMERON’S DEEPSEA CHALLENGE 3D Fri-SatSun 02:30 INTERSTELLAR Fri-Sat-Sun 07:00 JERUSALEM Fri 12:00 BEARS Fri-Sat-Sun 01:00 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 Fri-Sat 09:45 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR Fri 04:30 BIG HERO 6 Sat 03:30 WALKING WITH DINOSAURS 3D Sat-Sun 11:00 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES Sun 04:30

Hollywood Theatre

4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215 THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015: ANIMATED Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 07:15 THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015: LIVE ACTION Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 09:05 SELMA Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 06:45 BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:30 R100 Fri 10:30 THE AGE OF LOVE Sat 01:30 SOMETHING WILD Sat 07:30 WYRMWOOD Sat 10:30 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015: DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM A Sat 02:30 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2015: DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM B Sat 05:00 JUST ANOTHER GIRL ON THE I.R.T. Sun 07:30 GRIDLORDS Sun 09:45 SKATERDATER Mon 07:00 THE ULTIMATE FLEX MACHINE Mon PASTORAL: TO DIE IN THE COUNTRY Mon 09:30 16MM EROTIC UNDERGROUND Tue 07:30 SOUL TRAIN EXPRESS Wed 07:30

St. Johns Theater

8203 N Ivanhoe St., 503-249-7474-6 THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:00, 04:00, 07:00, 09:30

Academy Theater

7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500 BIG EYES Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 01:55, 07:15 NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:20, 04:30 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 04:40, 09:30 BIG HERO 6 Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:10 INTERSTELLAR Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:30, 09:15 NIGHTCRAWLER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 09:40 BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:10, 06:45 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR Sat-SunMon 12:15

SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CALL THEATERS OR VISIT WWEEK.COM/MOVIETIMES FOR THE MOST UP-TODATE INFORMATION FRIDAY-THURSDAY, FEB. 13-19, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED

PORTLAND GUIDES

2014

RESTAURANT

Portland Guides

OF THE

PORTLAND GUIDES

2015 small tabs

INSIDE

YEAR

PORTLAND GUIDES

BEER GUIDE

PORTLAND GUIDES

PORTLAND GUIDES

PORTLAND GUIDES

CHEAP EATS

CHEAP EATS willamette week’s

From oodles of noodles and banh mi to small plates, pub grub and food carts, Portland is rich with delicious discount destinations. Cheap Eats is the budget diner’s bible, our annual homage to affordable fare. february 19, 2014

willamette week

1

Publishes: 3/18/15 Deadline: 3/5/15

BAR GUIDE

PORTLAND GUIDES

2014

RESTAURANT

Portland Guides

OF THE

PORTLAND GUIDES

PORTLAND GUIDES

BEER GUIDE INSIDE

YEAR

PORTLAND GUIDES

PORTLAND GUIDES

PORTLAND GUIDES

So many bars, so little time. Our annual Bar Guide gives readers the lowdown on where to load up. We do the dirty work of exploring the city’s bars, taverns, lounges, and pubs to produce a curated list of the best and most interesting places to imbibe, including our Bar of The Year.

BAR GUIDE willamette week’s

april 9, 2014

willamette week

1

Publishes: 4/15/15 Deadline: 4/2/15

Call: 503.243.2122 Email: advertising@wweek.com Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

59

GREGSPHOTO.COM

END ROLL

STRAIN REVIEW: WILLY’S WONDER More formally known as William’s Wonder, this indica has long been a member of the hall of fame of strains. Willy’s Wonder is known for its heavy high and sweet, flavorful taste. But the batch now available at Today’s Herbal Choice (2606 SE Gladstone St., 971-544-7685, thcglad.com) is a different take on the classic strain.

This Willy’s Wonder comes from a recent outdoor harvest in Southern Oregon, and is finding shelf space across the state.

Outdoor-grown marijuana is more affordable and easier on the environment than indoor-grown strains, but the patient population tends to seek out more consistent designer buds from high-tech indoor grows. That sentiment is so strong that outdoor growers are striving to rebrand themselves, using “sun-grown” as a likable synonym for outdoor-grown. Regardless of what patients are smoking right now, the cost of lighting and setup will eventually drive down indoor grows. Expect to see more classic strains like Willy’s Wonder grown by Mother Nature’s hand in the coming months.

Aesthetics and aroma: It doesn’t glitter like climate-controlled indoor buds, without trichome-laden clusters tended to perfection.

The matte green leaves are loose and wild, dotted with pockets of purple and decent clumps of frosty hairs.

Smoke: Most outdoor-grown pot tastes like dry, dirty hay, hence the term “ditchweed.”

Willy’s Wonder has a slightly skunky sweetness to it, but the taste is bland compared to the curated symphonies of flavor that come from well-grown indoor buds.

Effects: Within 15 minutes of tossing the roach to the curb, a joint of Willy’s Wonder further narrowed my eyes into squints and left my shoulders and back noticeably loose. Tested at 24.1 percent THC and 0.1 percent CBD, this batch should be smoked when one has time to zone out. Like the best outdoors strains, and surely the inspiration for the name, this weed’s heavy high comes out of nowhere with a disorienting jolt. One second you’re grimacing at the taste of malnourished vegetation still on your lips, the next it’s difficult to recall whether you’ve eaten today. A strong euphoria sets in, quickly erasing any negative feelings about the looks or flavor of the natural buds. One is moved to a place of complacent flexibility, totally in line with the small-town chill of the southern lands from whence it came.

Verdict: In terms of sun-grown buds, it falls in the middle. It doesn’t taste fantastic or smoke very well, but it’s better than most outdoor flavors and has glimmers of trichomes, to the credit of the grower. The satisfying indica high is true to Willy’s legend, but the relaxation fades after an hour. If used for insomnia, that short-lived high does improve your chances of avoiding the grogginess of an indica hangover. MARY ROMANO.

For more information on John Callahan’s memorial, see ffojohncallahan.tumblr.com.

60

Willamette Week FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

CLASSIFIEDS DIRECTORY 61

WELLNESS

61

PETS

61

SERVICES

61

BULLETIN BOARD

61

REAL ESTATE

61

MOTOR

62 JONESIN’

63

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:

MATT PLAMBECK

& MATCHMAKER

SERVICES FINANCIAL ARE YOU IN BIG TROUBLE WITH THE IRS? Stop wage & bank levies, leiens & audits, unfiled tax returns, payroll isssues & resolve tax debt FAST call 844-753-1317

BUILDING/REMODELING

MEN’S HEALTH MANSCAPING Bodyhair grooming M4M. Discrete quality service.

503-841-0385 by appointment.

PETS FOR SALE

LAWN SERVICES BERNHARD’S Residential, Commercial and Rentals.

Complete yard care, 20 years.

503-515-9803. Licensed and Insured.

No Job Too Small!

GARCIA MAINTENANCE, LLC 503-774-2237 ONE TIME CLEAN-UPS FOR ALL SEASONS -Mowing and edging -Flower bed weeding, -Shrub & Small Tree Removal -Yard Work -Blackberry and Brush Clearing -Pruning for Shrubs, Hedges & Small Trees -Weeding, Trimming -Barkdust -Mulching -Pressure Washing -Gravel & Rock -Hauling -Thatching & Aeration -Flower Beds -Year Round Maintenance Specializing in Yard Clean-up for Real Estate Sale Free Estimates Reasonable Prices Licensed/Insured rogeliog391@gmail.com 503-774-2237

PAINTING/WALLPAPERING COLORFAST PAINTING Interior/Exterior, Wallpaper Removal, Texturing, Power Wash Licensed/Insured #160585 503-312-5049

PETS

TREE SERVICES CLEANING

STEVE GREENBERG TREE SERVICE Pruning and removals, stump grinding.

24-hour emergency service. Licensed/ Insured. CCB#67024. Free estimates.

503-284-2077

BULLETIN BOARD WILLAMETTE WEEK’S GATHERING PLACE NON-PROFIT DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE.

MASSAGE (LICENSED)

REL A X!

INDULGE YOURSELF in an - AWESOME FULL BODY MASSAGE

call

Charles

503-740-5120

lmt#6250

TOTALLY RELAXING MASSAGE Featuring Swedish, deep tissue and sports techniques by a male therapist.

Conveniently located, affordable, and preferring male clientele at this time. #5968 By appointment Tim 503.482.3041

JOBS

61

MUSICIANS’ MARKET

503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com

WELLNESS

COUNSELING

61

FEBRUARY 11, 2015

GARDENING CHIHUAHUAS Puppies!, Call for pricing. Financing Avail.

Adult Adoptions Also. Reputable Oregon Kennel. Unique Colors, Long & Short Haired, Tiny to Hearty sizes. Health Guaranteed, UTD, Vaccinations/Wormings, Litterbox Trained, Socialized.

Video/Pictures/Virtual Tour: www. chi-pup.net Adults available for adoption! -low fee!

References Happily Supplied! Easy I-5 Access. Drain, OR. Umpqua Valley Kennels, Vic & Mary Kasser 541-459-5951 REBECCA’S RAGDOLL STARS TICA registered kittens, All immunizations completed, Expensive but worth it!

360-892-3764

PREP YOUR YARD FOR WINTER! Landscape Cleanups, Pruning, Hauling, Mulching, Eave Cleaning, Maintenance, Design Ideas Free Estimates - Friendly Service Call John 503-274-7939 NW.Plantscapes@yahoo.com

HAULING/MOVING LJ’S HAULING ANYTHING Removal of Metal/Cars free 503-839-7222

ADOPTION PREGNANT? THINKING OF ADOPTION? Talk with caring agency specializing in matching Birthmothers with Families Nationwide. LIVING EXPENSES PAID. Call 24/7 Abby’s One True Gift Adoptions. 866-413-6293.

***ADOPTION:***

Affectionate Devoted Married Caring Lawyers Joyfully await Miracle Baby.

Excited Grandparents too. *Expenses Paid* *** 1-800-563-7964***

LEGAL NOTICES Estate of Jackson Hubbard NOTICE TO INTERESTED PERSONS Case Number: C14-0556PE Notice: The Circuit Court of the State of Oregon, for the County of Washington has appointed the undersigned as Personal Representative of the Estate of Jackson Hubbard, deceased. All persons having claims against said estate are required to present the same, with proper vouchers to the Personal Representative at the address of his attorney, 312 NW 10th Ave., #200B, Portland OR 97209 within four months from the date of first publication of this notice as stated below, or they may be barred. All persons whose rights may be affected by this proceeding may obtain additional information from the records of the court, the Personal Representative, or the Attorney for the Personal Representative.Dated and first published Feb. 4th, 2015.PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVEMichael HubbardATTORNEY FOR PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVEMaret Thatcher Smith 312 NW 10th Ave #200 B971-284-7129maret@thatchersmithlaw. comOSB # 105103

LESSONS CLASSICAL PIANO/ KEYBOARD ALL AGES. BACH, MOZART SPECIALIST, MA SWITZERLAND. PORTLAND 503-227-6557

REAL ESTATE REAL ESTATE

MISCELLANEOUS AUTO INSURANCE STARTING AT $25/ MONTH! Call 855-977-9537

SUPPORT GROUPS FEELING POLYAMOROUS?

OR JUST POLY-CURIOUS POLYAMORY CIRCLE CALL LAURY 503-285-4848

JOBS ADMINISTRATIVE/OFFICE VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS ANALYTICS, IT AND TICKET OPERATIONS (VP-VI) Provide senior management with analytical support for data-based decisionmaking across the Portland Trail Blazers and affiliated sports, entertainment, and venue businesses. Reqs Masters or equiv and 4 yrs related exp. Mail resume to Trail Blazers, Attn: Ben Lauritsen, One Center Court, Suite 200, Portland, OR 97227.

Must ref title & code.

GENERAL $1000 WEEKLY MAILING BROCHURES From Home. Helping home workers since 2001. Genuine Opportunity. No Experience required. Start Immediately www.mailingmembers.com AIRLINE CAREERS begin here Get trained as FAA certified Aviation Technician. Housing and Financial aid for qualified students. Job placement assistance. Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance 877-725-1563 1GENERAL MANAGER (EUGENE, OR) For the Oregon Country Fair. Complete job description available at www.oregoncountryfair.net. Salary commensurate with experience. Resumes must be received by 5pm March 6th, 2015, by mail to GM Hiring Committee, OCF, 442 Lawrence Street, Eugene, OR 97401 or email to pc@oregoncountryfair.org. 501(c)(3) non-profit, EOE, preference will be given to OCF participants. 541.343.4298

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.

MOTOR

INSTRUMENTS FOR SALE

WANTED PORSCHE 356 911 OR 912 1953-1987 Porsche Project/Apart OK. Local Cash Buyer. 503-572-8459

TRADEUPMUSIC.COM Buying, selling, instruments of every shape and size. Open 11am-7pm every day. 4701 SE Division & 1834 NE Alberta.

MUSIC LESSONS VOICE INSTRUCTION Anthony Plumer, Concert Artist/Voice Teacher. www.naturalvocalarts.com 503-299-4089.

LEARN PIANO ALL STYLES, LEVELS With 2 time Grammy winner Peter Boe. 503-274-8727.

CALL TO LIST YOUR PROPRTY 503-445-2757

Willamette Week Classifieds FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

61

TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:

MATT PLAMBECK

503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com

CHATLINES

Find your Flame on

JONESIN’

by Matt Jones

It’s a Trap!–this’ll give you some warm fuzzies. that...”

58 Got 100% on 59 Jamaica’s Ocho ___ 61 Group including only elements number #13 and #2?

63 Criminal’s alter egos, briefly 64 “Aloha Oe” instruments, for short 65 English horn relatives 66 Stuff in the trap 67 Stuff in the trap 68 Stuff in the trap

LiveMatch

TRY IT FREE!

Free CHATROOMS & FORUMS

Portland 503-222-CHAT (2428) Vancouver 360-314-CHAT

Seattle 206-753-CHAT • Tacoma 253-359-CHAT • Everett 425-405-CHAT

or WEB PHONE on LiveMatch.com

MAN to MAN

Free group chatrooms 24/7! 503-222-CHAT

REAL PEOPLE REAL DESIRE REAL FUN

Across 1 It’s a long story 5 With 6-Down, reality show “RuPaul’s ___” 9 Inseparable pair, for short 13 More mentally there 14 Freedom from worry 15 Two-tone treat 16 Swindling of a UK football club?

18 Pinto or garbanzo 19 Jerome Bettis’s team, during the move 20 Nissan SUV with

Breathalyzer 42 Former Cabinet member Donna 43 One of the simple machines 45 “The pain reliever hospitals use most,” its old ads said 49 Baseball great Ernie Banks’s nickname 52 ___ polloi (commoners) 53 “I ___ real American...” (Hulk Hogan theme lyric) 54 Wise friend of Pooh 56 “Let’s suppose

ENTERTAINMENT

Talk About A Good Time

Try for FREE

Ahora en Español

For More Local Numbers: 1.800.926.6000

www.livelinks.com

Since 1955 Open to 2:30 am 365 days a year

Teligence/18+

Classified

Try it for free

503-416-7436 More local numbers: 1-800-550-0618 Ahora en Español/18+ www.interactivemale.com

62

last week’s answers

©2015 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 #JONZ714.

CHATLINE TM

503.416.7098

an earthy name 22 Rowing machine unit 23 NPR’s Shapiro 24 “I finally got it!”

25 Quarterback known for kneeling 27 Ali of “Love Story” 29 Middle daughter on “Downton Abbey” 32 Raised sculptures 36 From ___ (at some distance) 37 Grade alongside the review “These Mick Jagger chewables are the worst”?

41 Used a

Down 1 Desert that means “desert” in Arabic 2 Lacking energy 3 Many toothpastes 4 “___ Gratia Artis” (MGM motto) 5 1974 Charles Bronson classic 6 See 5-Across 7 Of ___ (so to speak) 8 Category 9 “Better Call Saul” star Odenkirk 10 Coffee shop connection 11 Phobia 12 Jukebox selection 13 “Hit the bricks!”

17 Lets out 21 1860s White House nickname 24 ___ Ishii (“Kill Bill” character played by Lucy Liu) 26 Whoopi’s Oscarwinning “Ghost” role 28 Marijuana producer 30 Leather color 31 “48 ___” (Eddie Murphy movie) 33 Gabor of “Green

Acres” 34 Most in need of a bath 35 Keep from trespassing on 37 NFL ball carriers 38 “___ Punk!” (movie about punk rock in Utah) 39 Debt repaid in regular payments over time 40 “That’s ___ can stand!”

44 Sports entertainment gp. founded by Ted Turner (and defunct by 2001) 46 Los Estados Unidos, for example 47 Folded food 48 ___-slipper (orchid variety) 50 Company supplying vans and cardboard boxes 51 “Perfect Strangers” cousin 54 Like some vaccines and exams 55 Website anyone can edit 57 “That was ___, this is now” 58 Dextrous start 60 Concorde’s letters 62 “You’ve Got Mail” ISP

Willamette Week Classifieds FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

Over 30 great dancers and a friendly all-female staff

wweekdotcom

129 SW Broadway

wweekdotcom

www.marysclub.com

wweekdotcom

503-227-3023

TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:

MATT PLAMBECK

503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com © 2015 Rob Brezsny

Week of February 12

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I hope you have someone in your life to whom you can send the following love note, and if you don’t, I trust you will locate that someone no later than August 1: “I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.” (This passage is borrowed from author Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Everything Is Illuminated.)

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “We assume that others show their love in the same way that we do,” writes psychologist Amy Przeworski, “and if they don’t follow that equation, we worry that the love is not there.” I think you’re on track to overcome this fundamental problem, Taurus. Your struggles with intimacy have made you wise enough to surrender your expectations about how others should show you their love. You’re almost ready to let them give you their affection and demonstrate their care for you in ways that come natural to them. In fact, maybe you’re ready RIGHT NOW. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I’d like to bestow a blessing on you and your closest ally. My hope is that it will help you reduce the restlessness that on occasion undermines the dynamism of your relationship. Here’s the benediction, inspired by a Robert Bly poem: As you sit or walk or lie next to each other, you share a mood of glad acceptance. You aren’t itchy or fidgeting, wondering if there’s something better to be or do. You don’t wish you were talking about a different subject or feeling a different emotion or living in a different world.

You are content to be exactly who you are, exactly where you are.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Want to infuse your romantic interludes with wilder moods now and then?

Want to cultivate a kind of intimacy that taps deeper into your animal intelligence? If so, try acting out each other’s dreams or drawing magic symbols on each other’s bodies. Whisper funny secrets into each other’s ears or wrestle like good-natured drunks on the living room floor. Howl like coyotes. Caw like crows. Purr like cheetahs. Sing boisterous songs and recite feral poetry to each other. Murmur this riff, adapted from Pablo Neruda: “Our love was born in the wind, in the night, in the earth. That’s why the clay and the flower, the mud and the roots know our names.”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Is there any sense in which your closest alliance is a gift to the world? Does your relationship inspire anyone?

Do the two of you serve as activators and energizers, igniting fires in the imaginations of those whose lives you touch? If not, find out why. And if you are tapping into those potentials, it’s time to raise your impact to the next level. Together the two of you now have extra power to synergize your collaboration in such a way that it sends out ripples of benevolence everywhere you go.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The poet Rainer Marie Rilke said that people misunderstand the role of love.

“They have made it into play and pleasure because they think that play and pleasure are more blissful than work,” he wrote. “But there is nothing happier than work. And love, precisely because it is the supreme happiness, can be nothing other than work.” I’m sharing this perspective with you for two reasons, Virgo.

First, of all the signs in the zodiac, you’re most likely to thrive on his approach. Second, you’re in a phase of your astrological cycle when this capacity of yours is at a peak. Here’s how Rilke finished his thought: “Lovers should act as if they had a great work to accomplish.”

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): About 2,600 years ago, the Greek poet Sappho wrote the following declaration: “You make me hot.” In the next ten days, I’d love for you to feel motivated to say or think that on a regular basis.

In fact, I predict that you will. The astrological omens suggest you’re in a phase when you are both more likely to be made hot and more likely to encounter phenomena that make you hot. Here are some other fragments from Sappho that might come in handy when you need

to express your torrid feelings: 1. “This randy madness I joyfully proclaim.” 2. “Eros makes me shiver again . . . Snake-sly, invincible.” 3. “Desire has shaken my mind as wind in the mountain forests roars through trees.”

(Translations by Guy Davenport.)

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In the TV science-fiction show Doctor Who, the title character lives in a time machine that is also a spaceship. It’s called a Tardis.

From the outside, it appears to be barely bigger than a phone booth. But once you venture inside, you find it’s a spacious chateau with numerous rooms, including a greenhouse, library, observatory, swimming pool, and karaoke bar. This is an excellent metaphor for you, Scorpio. Anyone who wants your love or friendship must realize how much you resemble a Tardis. If they don’t understand that you’re far bigger on the inside than you seem on the outside, it’s unlikely the two of you can have a productive relationship. This Valentine season, as a public service, make sure that everyone you’re seriously involved with knows this fact.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Love and intimacy come in many forms. There are at least a billion different ways for you to be attracted to another person, and a trillion different ways to structure your relationship.

Maybe your unique bond involves having sex, or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s romantic or friendly or holy, or all three of those things. Do the two of you have something important to create together, or is your connection more about fueling each other’s talents? Your task is to respect and revere the idiosyncratic ways you fit together, not force yourselves to conform to a prototype. To celebrate the Valentine season, I invite you and your closest ally to play around with these fun ideas.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Anais Nin wrote the following passage in her novel A Spy in the House of Love: “As other girls prayed for handsomeness in a lover, or for wealth, or for power, or for poetry, she had prayed fervently: let him be kind.” I recommend that approach for you right now, Capricorn. A quest for tender, compassionate attention doesn’t always have to be at the top of your list of needs, but I think it should be for now. You will derive a surprisingly potent alchemical boost from basking in kindness. It will catalyze a breakthrough that can’t be unleashed in any other way. Ask for it!

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): How many desires do you have? Take a rough inventory. Identify the experiences you continually seek in your quest to feel relief and pleasure and salvation and love and a sense of meaning. You can also include fantasies that go unfulfilled and dreams that may or may not come true in the future. As you survey this lively array, don’t censor yourself or feel any guilt. Simply give yourself to a sumptuous meditation on all the longings that fuel your journey. This is your prescription for the coming week. In ways you may not yet be able to imagine, it is the medicine you need most.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The German word Nachkussen refers to the kind of kiss that compensates for all the kissing that has not been happening, all the kissing that has been omitted or lost. If it has been too long since you’ve kissed anyone, you need Nachkussen.

If your lover hasn’t kissed you lately with the focused verve you long for, you need Nachkussen. If you yourself have been neglecting to employ your full artistry and passion as you bestow your kisses, you need Nachkussen. From what I can tell, Pisces, this Valentine season is a full-on Nachkussen holiday for you. Now please go get what you haven’t been getting.

L C O E UDS H T IN SMOKE SHOP

inthecloudspdx

3821 NE MLK Jr. BLVD. 503.384.2251 vape pens.water pipes.oil rigs.nails.papers.grinders.e-cigs

IF YOU USED THE BLOOD THINNER XARELTO and suffered internal bleeding, hemorrhaging, required hospitalization or a loved one died while taking Xarelto between 2011 and the present time, you may be entitled to compensation.

Call Attorney Charles H. Johnson 1-800-535-5727

Changing the image of rescue, one animal at a time...

Interested in adopting from the Pixie Project CALL 503.542.3433

STORM SPONSOR E D BY

LAMBO

DUSTY

S P O NSO R ED BY

S P O NSO R ED BY

www.petsonbroadway.com

503-283-8337

Homework Proposed experiment: Carry out an act of love that’s unique in your history. Testify at FreeWillAstrology.com.

check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes

PERSIMMON SPONSOR E D BY

COWBOY BUSCUIT

BUDDY

SPO N SO RE D BY

S P O NSO R ED BY

www.antoinettejewelry.com

naturespetmarket.com

freewillastrology.com

The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at

1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700

www.fetcheyewear.com

Willamette Week Classifieds FEBRUARY 11, 2015 wweek.com

63

BACK COVER

Cover Oregon is over

TO ADVERTISE ON WILLAMETTE WEEK’S BACK COVER CALL 503-445-2757

You may still be eligible for a premium tax credit or even a $0 or low-cost health plan.

Don’t waste hours navigating the

BANKRUPTCY

Stop Garnishments, Collections Call Now: 503-808-9032 FREE Consultation. Payment Plans.

Scott Hutchinson, Attorney www.Hutchinson-Law.com

I can enroll you in minutes.

There is no charge for my service and your premium will be the same.

A FEMALE FRIENDLY SEX TOY BOUTIQUE Atomic Auto atomicauto.biz 2510 NE Sandy Blvd. (503) 969-3134

$$$ CASH FOR DIABETIC TEST STRIPS $$$

for every body EVEN MORE PLEASURE, POWER & PAIN: EXPANDING YOUR BDSM EXPERIENCES / FEB 19 - 7:30 - $20 BACK THAT ASS UP!: ANAL SEX 101 / WED, FEB 25 - 7:30 - $20 BON APPÉTIT! THE FINE ART OF CUNNILINGUS / WED, MAR 18 - 7:30- $20 RENAMING DESIRE: TRANS/NON-TRANS SEX REVISITED / THURS APRIL 23 - 7:30 - $20

Henri Cross/ HE CROSS CO. • 503-241-6147 1001 SW Fifth Ave. Suite 1100 FINAL DAYS! Portland, OR 97204

NOW AT TWO LOCATIONS! 3213 SE DIVISION ST AND AT 909 N BEECH ST PORTLAND SHEBOPTHESHOP.COM

Paying up to $30/box. Help those who can’t afford insurance. Free pickup in SW WA and Portland Metro.

Call 360-693-0185

Guitar Lessons

Personalized instruction for over 15yrs. www.portlandguitar-lessons.com 503-546-3137

NOW OPEN!

Comedy Classes

Improv, Standup, Sketch writing.

Now enrolling The Brody Theater, 503-224-2227 www.brodytheater.com

BUY LOCAL, BUY AMERICAN, BUY MARY JANES Glass Pipes, Vaporizers, Incense & Candles

WHERE SINGLES MEET

5425 NE 33rd Ave. Portland, OR 97211 (971) 279-5050

Browse & Reply FREE! 503-299-9911 Use FREE Code 2557, 18+

$Cash for Junk Vehicles$

Ask for Steven. 503-936-5923

AA HYDROPONICS

9966 SW Arctic Drive, Beaverton 9220 SE Stark Street, Portland American Agriculture ï americanag.com PDX 503-256-2400 BVT 503-641-3500

CASH for INSTRUMENTS Tradeupmusic.com SE - 503-236-8800 NE - 503-335-8800

Qigong Classes

Cultivate health and energy www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666

Nonprofit Attorneys Bankruptcy

Tax, Tenants, Small Business, More Payment Plans - Sliding-Scale (503) 208-4079 www.CommunityLawProject.org

WWEEKDOTCOM

Top Portland Agent

Stephen FitzMaurice, Realtor Sell your home fast, for less.

Full service. Unbeatable marketing program. Join hundreds of satisfied Portland home sellers.

Licensed Broker in OR, Premiere Property Group, LLC. 3636 NE Broadway St. 503-975-6853 RealEstateAgentPDX.com

Stephen’s Home of the Week 1255 NW 9TH AVE #204, 1bed, 1bath, 729sq, $349,500 RealEstateAgentPDX.com

NORTH WEST HYDROPONIC R&R

We Buy, Sell & Trade New and Used Hydroponic Equipment.

503-747-3624

1425 NW 23rd Portland, OR 97210 (503) 841-5751 Oregon Medical Marijuana Patient Resource Center *971-255-1456* 1310 SE 7TH AVE

New Year� Sal� $100/OZ Flower $5/G Flower $20 BHO $8 Kief

albertagreenhouse.com

Open 7 Days www.ommpResourceCenter.com

SMOKE SIGNALS ON SANDY

503-954-3900

Vaporizers, hookahs, glass pipes, tobacco, gift items 3554 NE SANDY BLVD. 503-253-0504

WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Mon-Sat 11am-7pm • Sun 12pm-6pm Muay Thai

FOLLOW @ WWE E K

Self defense & outstanding conditioning. www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666

ON TWITTER

MICHELLE HINES

I am looking for you Steve Kiyak, 541-659-3804

OMMP CARDHOLDERS GET 25% DISCOUNT!

Quick fix synthetic urine now available.

Your hookah headquarters. Vapes. E-cigs, glass pipes, discount tobacco, detox products, salvia and kratom Still Smokin’ Tobacco For Less 12302 SE Powell 503-762-4219

MEDICAL MARIJUANA Card Services Clinic

503-384-WEED (9333) www.mmcsclinic.com 4911 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland Mon-Sat 9-6

503 235 1035

New Downtown Location!

1501 SW Broadway www.mellowmood.com

4119 SE Hawthorne, Portland ph: 503-235-PIPE (7473)

Pizza Delivery

Until 4AM!

www.hammyspizza.com