Willamette Week, December 9, 2020 - Volume 47, Issue 7 - A Very COVID Christmas

WILLAMETTE WEEK

PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

NEWS: ON THE TOXIC BEACH. P. 9 BUSINESS: EARL VS. CHILI’S. P. 10 BREAD: CHALLAH IF YOU HEAR ME. P. 29

THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR IS IMPERILED BY A PANDEMIC. HERE’S HOW PORTLAND IS ADAPTING. PAGE 11

INSIDE THIS ISSUE!

WWEEK.COM

VOL 47/07 12.09.2020

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STAY SAFE, STAY INFORMED. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER. WWEEK.COM

FINDINGS MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

CORNELL FARM, PAGE 14

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 47, ISSUE 7 Oregon grocers want their own version of Kirkland bourbon. 5

Oregon is the country’s top producer of real Christmas trees. 14

State officials requested more than 15,000 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. 6

Want to hear Bill Schonely sing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”?

There is a television special. 15

The creator of Mimi’s Fresh Tees says she’s received multiple death threats. 7

Toro Bravo has been replaced by a sandwich shop selling Portuguese muffins. 27

Willamette Cove is too toxic for hiking. 9

The Challahman will be bring

Congressman Earl Blumenauer fears a tsunami of Applebee’s. 10 A Portland Santa will be greeting children from inside a giant plastic snow globe this Christmas. 12 The nearest open ice rink to Portland is six hours away in Klamath Falls. 13

News Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Matthew Singer Assistant A&C Editor Andi Prewitt Music & Visual Arts Editor Shannon Gormley Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Latisha Jensen, Rachel Monahan, Tess Riski Copy Editor Matt Buckingham

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Art historians now joke they suffer from “Las Meninas Fatigue Syndrome.” 36

Want to learn how to make your own cannabis lube? There is a book. 37

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK: Portland TikTok star Alyssa McKay spoke at TechfestNW.

MASTHEAD EDITORIAL

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Leroy Barber, aka Black Santa, photo

by Christine Dong.

Mark Zusman

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In last week’s cover story, WW examined eight Oregon businesses that have boomed during the pandemic. That includes dog breeders—like an English cream golden retriever breeder in Salem who has upped the price per puppy by $500 and has a waiting list through next year—and vacation homes in Sunriver, where buyers largely from California are snatching homes off the market, often for above asking price. Sales of jigsaw puzzles, blankets and wine are also on the rise, but our readers had the most to say about pandemic puppies and second homes.

Erika Peterson via Facebook: “‘House you can afford.’ Sunriver. Snort.” @SunChas80567198 via Twitter: “Nice story about how the pandemic doesn’t affect the affluent.

They are still buying second homes and luxury properties. Shocking.”

Zena via Facebook: “Oh…to be so privileged to have these problems. Meanwhile, the majority of my students barely have the home security of an apartment.”

Kelly Stiles via Facebook: “‘We just moved here from the Bay Area,’ like nails on a chalkboard.” @iff_or via Twitter: “2020 is when I learned I can get resentment chills.”

Cathy Nash Petersen via Facebook: “Adopt!

Let’s hope all the people that got dogs during the pandemic keep them and treat them like part of the family once there isn’t someone at home every day all day.”

Dr. Know

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

Lex DeNovo via wweek.com: “Yeah, can’t get behind this article, that is, its subject. Too many other dogs out there for the loving to have a breeder be having a wait list for designer dogs.” pdxn00b via wweek.com: “Ugh, this is so irresponsible. Once the economy opens up, invariably many of these will be abandoned at shelters or lead a miserable life [spent] alone indoors.

Dog breeders should be taxed to fund running of animal shelters, just like how gas tax is used to pay for road maintenance and tobacco tax is used to fund cancer research.”

Karla Kay via Facebook: “In a few months after going back to work, all these people will wonder why their ‘purebred’ dogs have a shit ton of separation anxiety. But go ahead and give hundreds to thousands of dollars to this breeder.”

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Email: mzusman@wweek.com

BY MART Y SMITH @martysmithxxx

In all the plague-ridden excitement, I’ve barely heard a word about drug possession becoming legal in Oregon next year. My question: Does this sea change in market conditions mean that coke, meth and smack are about to get a whole lot cheaper? —Walter White Christmas I’m not sure if this will come as good or bad news to you, Walter—my own opinion fluctuates based on how many drinks I’ve had in the past couple of hours—but fears that Oregon’s new law will usher in an era of cheap, plentiful drugs are likely overblown.

At first blush, this doesn’t make sense. Tougher drug laws make drugs harder to get, right? According to supply and demand, that should increase the price.

Lenient laws, meanwhile, should make prices drop.

That’s not what happens, though. As the prosecutors of the War on Drugs discovered, ramping up enforcement often has the paradoxical effect of driving drug prices lower. Drug availability actually increased in the tough-on-crime 1980s. The more you tighten your grip, Grand Moff Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers!

I’d be lying if I said there was a solid academic consensus as to why this happens, but there is one theory I find persuasive. Fire up a doobie and gather round!

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Lorene Jones via wweek.com: “Most reputable breeders already had waiting lists for their puppies even before the pandemic. Sadly, many nonreputable breeders are taking advantage of the demand and breeding dogs that are genetically or physically unhealthy and, sadly, it will be the buyers who pay the ultimate price for this. Please do your research and make sure the breeder does at least the minimum health testing recommended by their breed parent club.”

As a practical matter, tighter drug enforcement means jailing a lot of low-level drug dealers and dealer-users—the big fish rarely gets caught.

These small fish don’t have a lot of clout, but they’re an essential part of the drug supply chain, and the Pablo Escobars of the world couldn’t make their millions without them.

When the cops crack down, however, being a Joe Schmo drug dealer becomes a riskier, less attractive proposition. To keep Joe working this now-crappier hustle, the big fish lowers his price, and the lure of fatter profits keeps Joe on the job.

Whether you buy that or not, other evidence points in the same direction. As it happens, Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2001, with a law similar to Oregon’s. Drug prices there stayed largely unchanged.

All the efforts law enforcement has made over the years seem to have had little effect—in either direction—on this most implacable of free markets.

I’m calling it: The War on Drugs is over. Drugs won.

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

MURMURS SAM GEHRKE

DR. PAUL THOMAS

GROCERS PONDER PRIVATE-LABEL BOOZE: In 2021, Oregon grocers are considering asking the Legislature to let them sell private-label hard liquor, as Costco does with its Kirkland brand in other states. The Northwest Grocery Association tried in 2014 and 2016 to privatize the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, but neither effort got very far. Association members hoped to achieve in-store sales in Oregon as Washington grocers did with a 2011 privatization measure mostly paid for by Costco. Dan Floyd, a spokesman for the grocers, says his group is talking with lawmakers about what might work. The OLCC and its allies in liquor distribution and local government are unlikely to support such a move. The commission is separately seeking to build a new $65 million warehouse, and received an early Christmas gift from Gov. Kate Brown: a proposal to add 25 cents in taxes to the price of each bottle of hard spirits.

PEDIATRICIAN RALLIES SUPPORT AFTER LICENSE SUSPENDED: Dr. Paul Thomas, an Ivy League-educated pediatrician with a Beaverton practice who is prominent in the national anti-vaccine movement, had his license suspended on emergency basis by the Oregon Medical Board on Dec. 3 after the state reviewed evidence he had dissuaded parents from fully vaccinating their children. Thomas was the subject of a WW cover story (“Alt-Vaxx,” March 20, 2019), in which parents alleged he had discouraged them from consenting to the typical course of immunizations for their kids.

But the medical board also reviewed troubling new allegations that Thomas appeared to push parents not to accept vaccines, including for the rotavirus, and that several of his unvaccinated patients were hospitalized after not getting the vaccine. Thomas responded to suspension of his license with an email to supporters Dec. 7 soliciting donations: “I (Dr. Paul) need a war chest to continue the multiple battles before me, which at this time include the medical board who can take my license.”

POLICE BUREAU REVEALS COVID NUMBERS FOR FIRST TIME: Fifteen members of the Portland Police Bureau—mostly sworn officers—have tested positive for COVID-19 since spring, and 40 have been quarantined, according to bureau spokesman Sgt. Brad Yakots. The most recent positive case was announced Dec. 4, Yakots says,

and 16 PPB members are currently quarantining.

This is the first time since the pandemic began that the bureau publicly reported total COVID numbers among staff, following an inquiry by WW. The cases haven’t shown up in the Oregon Health Authority’s weekly COVID report, which tracks workplace outbreaks of five employees or more, because the cases occurred at different Police Bureau facilities and happened several weeks apart, according to various spokespeople for the city and county. Yakots says there is no evidence of PPB employees are spreading the virus to one another: “We are comfortable saying we have not had a member who had tested positive for COVID infect another member.”

OREGON LAWMAKERS SEEK TO PROTECT SCHOOLS FROM COVID LAWSUITS: A new bill concept prepared for the Oregon Legislature’s 2021 session, or for a special session, seeks to shield school districts from COVID-19-related lawsuits. Legislative Concept 2330, headed by Reps.

Karin Power (D-Milwaukie) and Janeen Sollman (D-Hillsboro), states that “a person may not bring a claim for damages related to COVID-19 infection suffered as a result of acts or omissions performed by a school district” while operating an education program and when the district is acting in compliance with COVID-19 emergency rules. The shield would not apply to “reckless, wanton or intentional misconduct.” Power tells WW: “This is both an incentive for schools to really double down when they reopen and make sure they are being as safe as they can, and a way to limit their liability for third parties who are using those grounds.”

HILOS WINS PITCHFESTNW: A zero-waste, 3D-printed shoe company is the winner of this year’s PitchfestNW. On Dec. 4, a panel of judges selected the Portland company, co-founded by Elias Stahl and Gaia Giladi, from a field of 60 startups in the competition at TechfestNW, sponsored by WW. Hilos makes personalized shoes remotely tailored to customers’ measurements.

They require keeping no inventory until an order is placed and can be disassembled and recycled.

Giladi says the most revolutionary part of Hilos’ product is the willingness to combine tech and fashion in footwear. “If a man is making tech products,” she asks, “why would he think to make a high heel more comfortable?”

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK WESLEY LAPOINTE

LEADERS

REJECTED: Providence denied far more nondisabling COVID-19 claims than any other workers’ compensation insurer.

Presumed Healthy The state’s largest hospital system continues to deny employees’ COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims.

BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS

njaquiss@wweek.com

Last week, Providence Health & Services, the state’s biggest hospital group, went on red alert because of the state’s steeply increasing coronavirus caseload. “We face an unprecedented surge of COVID-19 patients,” Providence executives told staff in an email obtained by The Oregonian.

Yet as Providence steels itself for the surge, it remains locked in a battle with its own employees about whether they’re owed compensation for getting exposed to the virus on the job.

“As the pandemic has gotten worse, Providence has gotten worse,” says Oregon Nurses Association spokesman Kevin Mealy, whose union represents Providence nurses.

“They aren’t protecting their frontline providers.”

All of Oregon’s nearly 2 million workers are covered by worker’s compensation insurance. (All employers are required to purchase insurance for their workers or self-insure.) About 20% of those employees work in health care.

Yet state figures continue to show a phenomenon WW first reported in July: A disproportionate chunk of all the denied nondisabling workers’ compensation claims related to COVID-19 come from Providence Health & Services, which is self-insured. (The state defines a “nondisabling” claim as one for which the claimant requires medical services but is unlikely to be permanently impaired.)

Providence has denied 90 such claims statewide this year.

No other employer has denied half that number.

Providence spokesman Gary Walker says the hospital chain complies with state workers’ compensation laws and welcomes claims from employees. But Walker says of the 90 denials that only one person actually tested positive for COVID-19, and that was a nonworkplace exposure.

“Exposure just means someone claimed exposure, and not that they tested positive or actually contracted COVID19,” Walker said in an email. “If someone tests negative or is not symptomatic, there is actually nothing to ‘accept’ for medical or disability benefits.”

In other words, Walker says Providence employees are seeking workers’ compensation to which they are not entitled.

Mealy says he’s puzzled that Providence remains an “outlier.”

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

“Nurses have been asking for basic health and safety measures for months,” he says. “That includes adequate PPE, exposure notification, access to testing, COVID-19 sick leave, and presumptive eligibility for workers’ compensation. It’s time for Providence to prove it cares about its caregivers.”

In at least 14 states, including Washington and Wyoming, according to the National Council of State Legislatures, workers who say they contracted COVID-19 in the course of their work are presumed to have gotten infected at work and are automatically covered by workers’ comp.

In Oregon, the state panel that advises the Legislature and Gov. Kate Brown on workers’ compensation deadlocked this summer on whether to provide “presumptive coverage.”

Gov. Brown and Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) declined to comment, but House Speaker Tina Kotek says she’s frustrated with the state’s failure to protect frontline workers and will push for legislation next year.

“Speaker Kotek supports a workers’ compensation insurance presumption that would provide basic protection and security for workers who are essential to a sustained economic recovery,” said her spokesman Danny Moran.

Here are the statistics from the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services for denied nondisabling claims for COVID-19 for all insurers through Nov. 30. The state does not track how many nondisabling claims insurers accepted.

WORKERS’ COMP INSURER

NO. OF DENIALS

Providence Health & Services–Oregon

90

SAIF Corp.

40

Church Mutual Insurance Co.

18

LM Insurance Corp.

7

49 other insurers combined

50

TOTAL DENIALS

205

Source: Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services

THE BIG NUMBER

™13

That’s the number of Oregon prison inmates who were promised early release due to COVID -19 but are still behind bars.

How long they’ve been waiting: between four and 10 weeks.

The reason: housing.

On Sept. 29, Gov. Kate Brown announced she had commuted the sentences of 66 Oregon inmates considered medically vulnerable to the virus or who were within two months of release.

WW has learned two of the 66—both of whom the state determined to be “medically vulnerable—have still not been released and their release date is unknown. That means they’ve have been incarcerated for 10 weeks past the date the governor announced their commutations.

Similarly, 11 inmates housed at Mill Creek Correctional Facility in Salem, most of whom were told their sentences would be commuted Nov. 19, are still awaiting release after multiple delays. Last month, their release date was pushed back to Nov. 25. Then it was delayed a second time. Nine of the 11 are medically vulnerable, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections.

DOC says the holdup is finding appropriate housing for those released early.

“Safe, affordable and felon-friendly housing has been an enormous hurdle for release planning,” DOC spokeswoman Jennifer Black tells WW. “Leadership at the Department of Corrections takes public safety very seriously and has committed to thorough review of each adult-in-custody file before forwarding to the governor for consideration of commutation. The work of meticulously reviewing the files of those under consideration is a significant undertaking for the agency.”

The difficulty in finding housing will likely be a sticking point going forward: Gov. Brown announced Dec. 2 she had expanded the pool of inmates whose sentences could be commuted during the pandemic to those within six months of release (before, it was inmates within two months of release who had not been convicted of dangerous crimes, as well as those considered medically vulnerable).

The guessing game can be draining on inmates and their families, says Diana Bouvia, the wife of a man incarcerated at Mill Creek for delivery of methamphetamine.

Mark Bouvia, 62, was told he’d be released Nov. 19. He is considered medically vulnerable: He has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to his wife, as well as scar tissue on his lungs from an injury he got as a teenager.

In October, Diana Bouvia says, corrections staff showed up at her home, where she lives with her two adult children, to assess whether it met the state’s criteria. “All good,” she recalls the corrections staff telling her after the inspection.

The following month, Bouvia says, her husband received another notice: His release date was delayed to Nov. 25 (she provided WW a copy of this notice).

As Thanksgiving approached, his wife says, the department took Mark Bouvia off his work detail, gave him a coronavirus test for which he tested negative, and assigned him a parole officer. (DOC says Bouvia’s release date was pushed to December because his housing wasn’t approved until mid-October.)

“He had something to look forward to,” Diana Bouvia says, “and just to have the rug pulled out from under you… it’s awful.”

DOC now tells WW it expects to release many of the Mill Creek inmates in mid- to late December: eight on Dec. 17, one on Dec. 23, and another on Dec. 30—four to six weeks past their initial release date of Nov. 19. Black added that release dates are “projected”—not set in stone.

“Oh God, that would be a miracle,” Bouvia said when WW told her DOC says it plans to release the inmates by the end of the month. “You worry so much about the COVID. You know they’re right next to each other.”

TESS RISKI.

NEWS PRIMER

WESLEY LAPOINTE

FOUR QUESTIONS FOR

Drs. Laura Byerly and Louis Picker The Kill List Two doctors provide the last signatures before Oregonians get a COVID-19 vaccine.

BY RACHEL MONAHAN

rmonahan@wweek.com

On Dec. 4, the Oregon Health Authority requested 15,600 doses of Pfizer’s COVID -19 vaccine from the federal government. It’s the job of two doctors to assure Oregonians the shots are safe.

Dr. Louis Picker, an Oregon Health & Science University professor who has worked on an HIV vaccine, and Dr. Laura Byerly, medical director of the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, are the two experts Gov. Kate Brown appointed last week to review safety data for any COVID-19 vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

They join a panel of experts from four Western states—California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington—who are looking to provide another level of assurance to the public in a politically tumultuous moment.

For some Oregonians, the vaccine is inextricably linked to election-year partisan politics. President Donald Trump pledged a COVID vaccine would arrive before Election Day thanks to “Operation Warp Speed.” It didn’t, and he lost. But people on both sides of the aisle still view the vaccine with greater skepticism. And the panel of experts will review the approvals provided by the Trump administration.

WW asked the doctors why we should trust them—and the vaccine.

Dr. Louis Picker WW: Why would the governor choose you?

Picker: I am not actively engaged in COVID-19 vaccine development, but I’m very familiar with the vaccines that are being developed, mainly because the vaccine backbones that are used—many were originally developed for HIV. We’ve had decades to develop a vaccine for HIV and we don’t have one, and yet we have one within a year for COVID-19. Can you explain that?

It’s actually quite easy to explain. The immune systems of humans aren’t able to clear HIV. They never get rid of it. Getting an HIV vaccine requires us to develop a vaccine that elicits an immune response that is better than nature. That’s not true for COVID-19.

It very clearly is controlled by the immune system.

Would you take the vaccine in the next few weeks if you were a frontline doctor?

Absolutely. I’d put my arm out right now—I mean, if it’s approved, and I expect it will be.

So will COVID research help in the development of HIV and tuberculosis vaccines?

What I hope happens is that the COVID example shows what can be done. I hope what this does is supercharge [the] imperative to say that was last century’s pandemic, that’s still here. We need to get rid of it. And we need to get rid of tuberculosis, which is an age-old pandemic that still has killed more people this year than COVID. Dr. Laura Byerly WW: Why would the governor choose you?

Byerly: I am there as a person who’s been giving vaccines to a vulnerable community for a long time. So I’m hoping to [be a] bridge—to say, “Yes, we can trust what’s happening.”

Would you take the vaccine?

I am feeling much better than I would have a couple months ago. I feel like there’s transparency. When things are getting glitched, we’re hearing about it.

Why does it give you faith that there have been glitches?

What was worrisome about the vaccine timeline being pushed and politicized was that things would be swept under the rug. And it appears that dumb mistakes are coming out. Having all of that out in the open just makes me feel like, well, I think that there’s not that many bad things happening in the time frame we have to work with.

What else should people know about vaccines that they don’t?

Getting a vaccine is always an expression of brotherly love. It’s always a slight risk to one’s own self to be part of a larger community, to keep the whole community healthy.

I would say, show that love one way or another—either wear your mask, avoid doing things that could expose another of your humans to coronavirus, or get a vaccine as a way to do that.

That piece of our interactions is getting really squelched lately. Do it for each other.

Rachel Monahan reported this story with the support of the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, a program of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2020 National Fellowship.

Here’s why prominent Black activists say they fear opening their mailboxes.

On Dec. 7, all five members of Portland City Council released a joint statement condemning hate mail and death threats against Black activists. “They received the threats because of their work towards a more equitable city and because they are Black,” the statement read. “The threats are abhorrent and disgusting and stand against our values.”

For some Portlanders, the statement might seem baffling. What’s it responding to? But for people at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement, the words felt long overdue.

Here’s the background.

Who received the threats?

Kamelah Adams, the owner of Portland apparel company Mimi’s Fresh Tees, says she has received a total of four hate letters this year: two in July and two in November.

The most recent one, which she reported Dec. 3, included six names on a “kill list.” All the names were of progressive Black leaders who received media coverage during this summer’s racial justice protests.

Candace Avalos is a student adviser at Portland State University who ran for City Council in May and now chairs the city’s charter review commission. Avalos says she found hate mail in her mailbox twice in November.

The second letter, received within a week of the first, contained a kill list of 20 names, including the six on the list Adams received.

Activist and community organizer Cameron Whitten, who is Black, says a letter without names was addressed to him back in October in an envelope that contained a powdery substance. He says it was intercepted by the FBI before it could reach his home.

How and in what form did they receive them?

Both Adams and Avalos say they found the letters in their mailboxes. Adams tells WW all the letters have similar handwriting. “It’s very traumatizing,” she says. “I should not have a reaction to checking my mailbox. That’s not a way to live.”

What do the recipients have in common?

Each person on the six-name kill list is Black, and all have been leaders in the Black Lives Matter protests.

“I don’t think we all have the same message,” Avalos says. “We are all addressing the same issues affecting our community. The goal of the person who is harassing us is to point out that Black people have a voice and have something to say about our Black communities.”

Who’s investigating?

The Portland Police Bureau says it is investigating. Police began looking into Kamelah’s case in July and then reached out to other letter recipients to open another investigation on the more recent letters in November, a few days after they were reported.

“Portland police have taken reports from individuals who received threatening letters.

ALARMED: Kamelah Adams is one of three Portlanders who say they’ve received death threats in the mail.

Investigators do not have new information to release,” Lt. Greg Pashley, a bureau spokesman, tells WW in an email.

Mayor Ted Wheeler issued public statements on Twitter a few days after the letters were posted on social media in July and December. He pledged to assist Portlanders who had been targeted by hate mail. Last month, he received intense criticism for not contacting a majority of people on the lists.

In a text message exchange with activist Jake Dockter on Nov. 23, Mayor Wheeler wrote, “I didn’t mean to give the impression that I am personally going to call 100 people on the list.”

What do the letter recipients want City Hall to do?

Adams says she wants officials to recognize the trauma caused by the letters and how it impacts victims’ loved ones. Her family and children are in counseling to process the trauma these letters have inflicted.

“I need City Council to denounce racism and take this matter very seriously,” Adams says. “We can’t just ignore this. I need City Council to focus on the trauma and how this impacts our lives. We need transparency and we need updates.”

Avalos had called for a joint statement several days before the council issued one.

She says officials should “give plans on how to help and protect the Black community from harassment.”

Whitten wants stronger protections against doxxing—the posting of private information online to harass and harm.“We need to have another emergency town hall for our BLM activists so they can have a space to hear from hate crime experts,” Whitten says.

Avalos says it’s difficult for her to imagine City Hall addressing the problem—since the Police Bureau has repeatedly used force on the activists whose harassment officials have condemned.

“How can they keep us safe? That is the ultimate question we’ve been asking,” Avalos says. “I want them to be transparent about these questions and come up with real solutions.” LATISHA JENSEN.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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What do Oregonians do when their neighbor needs a little help?

They help. If you or anyone you know, needs help with their energy bill, just call PGE at 503-228-6322 or visit portlandgeneral.com/covid19.

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NEWS J U S T I N K AT I G B A K

For the two decades since, the parties responsible for polluting the riverbed—corporations, many of which no longer exist; government agencies, such as the city of Portland and the port; and their insurers—have wrangled with the EPA over how to clean up the mess that a century of industrial use left behind.

The 20 years has brought little benefit to Portlanders.

For much of the past two decades, they have absorbed a charge on their water bills for the city’s share of what EPA finally decided last year will be a $1 billion cleanup.

That cleanup will be largely invisible. Nearly all the affected land is underwater, and the upland portions remain in the hands of industrial owners or the Port of Portland. (DEQ is overseeing the upland cleanup, which is proceeding in parallel with the federally regulated in-water cleanup.)

Willamette Cove is one of the few affected pieces of riverfront land in public ownership—and it’s in a neighborhood that has long borne the brunt of Portland’s heavy industry.

A social justice issue is also at play. Among the parcels in Metro’s greenspace portfolio are heavily used public lands, such as Oxbow and Blue Lake parks. But few of agency’s parks are located in urban areas, even though Multnomah County is the biggest source of funding for the agency.

Metro nodded to that disconnect when it presented the 2019 parks bond to voters. The measure was aimed in part at improving properties it purchased with previous bonds in 1996 and 2005—and to right historic wrongs.

“Racial equity is the core of the bond measure,” Metro told voters. “It prioritizes outcomes that benefit people of color, Indigenous people, people with low incomes, people with varying abilities, and other historically marginalized groups who have not benefited equitably from past investments.”

But cleanup advocates fear what Metro wants would provide little more than a bike path and a few walking trails: far less than the vibrant waterfront park they envision.

“What they’ve proposed is going to be restricted and dangerous,” Sallinger says. “There are no playgrounds, no sports fields, no picnic areas. That doesn’t work.”

Peterson says Metro did not, as advocates fear, steer DEQ toward the cheaper, less thorough cleanup. All options are on the table, she adds, even though DEQ is expected to release a final cleanup plan in the first quarter of 2021.

CLEANUP CREW: Cassie Cohen (left) and Michael Pouncil (right) want Metro to leave Willamette Cove squeaky clean.

Buried Treasure

North Portlanders want a contaminated beach turned into a park.

Government officials propose to bury the toxic waste onsite.

BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS

njaquiss@wweek.com

Like a post-industrial Stonehenge, Willamette Cove is sandwiched on the east bank of the Willamette River between the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Bridge and the St. Johns Bridge.

The once vibrant industrial property is today a wasteland, partly reclaimed by oaks, madrone and cedars. Along the shore, tangled concrete support beams and skeletal dock pilings hide under blackberry bushes and other vegetation.

Signs tell neighbors to keep out. They come anyway, walking their dogs, fishing from shore, and even sleeping on the beach when there’s no other place to go.

In 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the 10-mile stretch of the Portland Harbor running north from the Broadway Bridge to the Columbia Slough a Superfund site. The cleanup of Willamette Cove is part of that process.

J U S T I N K AT I G B A K

On sunny days, Michael Pouncil likes to stroll past the warning signs posted along Willamette Cove and tramp through what he hopes will be Portland’s next great waterfront park.

For Pouncil, the 3,000-foot stretch of beach in North Portland, owned by regional government Metro, is an oasis: a place to hike in dense woods or spy on the rafts of aquatic birds bobbing offshore.

“This is a slam dunk,” says Pouncil, who lives nearby and chairs the Portland Harbor Community Advisory Group. “Why can’t we have access to the river like Oaks Bottom or Poet’s Beach? This could be a beautiful site—a feather in the cap for Metro and for the city of Portland.”

But Pouncil only goes to Willamette Cove wearing boots.

And when he returns home, he rinses the boots and keeps them outside.

The soil of Willamette Cove is soaked in dioxins, PCBs, heavy metals, and other toxic chemicals.

In 1996, Metro bought the 27-acre parcel, once the site of a plywood factory and, for most of the 20th century, home to a Port of Portland dry dock where ships were repaired. After 40 years lying fallow, the site is finally poised for cleanup.

But the recommendation from state environmental officials would result in far less than the park Pouncil and his neighbors want.

Instead, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in March recommended removing 4,000 cubic yards of toxic material but leaving 23,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil buried onsite. That’s enough dirt to fill seven Olympic-sized pools.

That option would cost $8.8 million and keep much of the property, including the beach, fenced off from the public forever.

Advocates, such as Portland Audubon, the Yakama Nation, and the Portland Harbor Community Coalition, say it leaves toxic waste in a floodplain and the soil would liquefy in the event of an earthquake. (Floods in Houston in 2017 scoured several dump sites capped in the way DEQ suggests.) And the agency’s plan would require monitoring to keep people away from contaminated areas.

Advocates say Metro could have steered DEQ toward full removal of the waste but is determined to go with a cheaper option that provides far less public benefit. They point to a confidential agreement between the port and

Metro that governs cleanup costs.

“What Metro is doing feels like an end run,” says Bob Sallinger, conservation director of Portland Audubon.

Metro Council President Lynn Peterson acknowledges her agency has a confidential agreement with the port (which the port also acknowledges and WW is seeking to obtain under the Oregon Public Records Law), but Peterson says she is looking forward to engaging with the community on its vision for the site.

“We need to open that engagement process up and cost out the full range of opportunities,” Peterson says.

The advocates have urged that DEQ and Metro instead truck all the contaminated material to an offsite landfill, which would make the whole property accessible, rather than just small parts of it. Cost, according to DEQ: $10.7 million.

The big moment: Dec. 10, when the Metro Council will consider whether to make Willamette Cove eligible for some of the $475 million voters approved in November 2019 to improve and maintain the agency’s 17,000 acres of greenspaces.

Advocates are pushing the council to go for a full cleanup, which they say would acknowledge the reality that people will use Willamette Cove heavily, regardless of whether Metro buries the toxic waste or removes it.

“This is the chance to get it right for the long term,” says Cassie Cohen, executive director of the Portland Harbor Community Coalition. “Willamette Cove can be cleaned up for perpetuity—or left dirty for perpetuity.”

KEEP OUT: Willamette Cove is off-limits because of contaminated soil.

“I’m just excited that we are able to move this forward and make it eligible for bond funding,” Peterson says. “We are committed to meeting racial, social justice and climate resilience goals.”

Pouncil wants everybody to get a chance to see what he sees at Willamette Cove.

“This is an environmental justice issue,” he says. “In North Portland, we only have one access to the river and that’s Cathedral Park—which is contaminated, as well.

Doing this right should be easy.”

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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NEWS ALEX WITTWER

MAGIC NEEDED: Voodoo Doughnut’s Northeast Portland shop is still open for takeout, but that model doesn’t support most pillars of the city’s food scene.

HOTSEAT: Rep. Earl Blumenauer He’s all that stands in the way of an Applebee’s on every Portland corner.

BY AA RO N M E S H

and

R AC H E L M O NAH AN

503-243-2122

WW: Why don’t we already have federal relief for restaurants? Point fingers, please. Name names.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer: I find myself staring at the ceiling at night, or I’m fielding calls. I don’t have a good reason 10

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

The compromise the state has made is to leave restaurants open to outdoor dining, to hopefully give them a way to stay in business. And much of what results is dining that’s actually enclosed. What do you make of that?

I don’t want to second-guess officials that are making really tough decisions. There probably could be some dining under a tent or with a wall or two that could be done safely.

The problem we’re facing is that we’ve got people who are just absolutely reckless. I did a takeout meal this weekend.

I went to a small restaurant near Capitol Hill, went in to pick up my order, and the place was filled with unmasked people. I mean, it just freaked me out.

That’s why I’m so desperate to get our legislation passed. So people don’t feel like they have to take risks. It’s brutal to try and have outdoor dining. I’ve had guests over around a couple of little propane heaters and a tent that we bought for our backyard. In Oregon and in November and December, it’s not just the restaurants that are desperate. People want that connection. People want to support their local restaurant. I hope that we get legislation passed to give these people a lifeline.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Senate is going to pass something in the next two weeks.

What are the chances the Restaurants Act makes it into the Senate relief package?

There’s a reasonably good chance. The Senate version of our bill is co-sponsored by over half the U.S. Senate, including Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham. Pres-

Is it an exaggeration to say this bill is all that’s standing between Portland and seeing an Applebee’s on every corner?

That’s not too much of an exaggeration. Who’s going to go into all of these spaces? It’s not going to be these small, independent restaurateurs, who are going to get burned.

Some of them are actually losing their savings or are going to go bankrupt. There’s going to be a desire for people to eat, and it may not be the corner diner. It may be some chain that moves in there. It’s much more likely that those will be the ones with access to capital. During what we quaintly call the last Great Recession 10 years ago, vulture capitalists came in and snapped up distressed homes and permanently put people out of the market. There’s a real question about who’s going to have the capital and the appetite to move in and take the place of the restaurants we lose.

Did you ever think marijuana legalization would make it through the House?

I thought this would happen much faster.

How many years before cannabis is federally legal?

One hesitates. I was a junior state legislator in the ’70s and voted on decriminalization. At the same time, we voted on allowing two plants for personal consumption. And that bill was carried by Stafford Hansell, a self-described conservative Republican pig farmer from Eastern Oregon.

And I thought the dominoes were going to fall. I did not foresee the impact of Nixon’s war on drugs and how they weaponized it. I will say that I have been very encouraged with what’s happening at the state level. Now, approximately 99% of people in America have state legal access to some form of cannabis. Uh, and the momentum continues to build. Those are the facts on the ground that the federal government can’t reverse.

Do you have any concerns about seeing the number of people using cannabis rise?

I’ve never used it myself.

I don’t want to undercut my credibility.

I am deeply concerned about people who don’t understand the impact of cannabis and alcohol.

Cannabis per se doesn’t make people aggressive.

It’s not something that leads to dangerous driving. People just kind of pull over to a 7-Eleven EARL BLUMENAUER and get a bag of Doritos.

But when it’s used with alcohol, it really can, can be seriously dangerous. [New York Times columnist] Maureen Dowd washed down a bag of chewables with a box full of chablis and had a bad trip.

I don’t want kids to use it. It messes with the developing brain. But I am deeply concerned that we don’t have clear messages for the American public. It’s like Donald Trump out there urging people to vote in the Georgia Senate election but saying the Georgia elections are flawed and cheat. The federal government lies to people about the harms and the effects of cannabis. So people don’t take them seriously. Kids don’t take them seriously.

KRISTIE BAXTER

A trip down East Burnside Street this week is like walking through a tent city. Inside each tent is what remains of a restaurant.

On Dec. 3, Gov. Kate Brown allowed Portland bars and eateries to resume outdoor service in covered picnic shelters, provided they were open to the air on at least three sides. A weekend’s worth of observation shows many restaurants aren’t sweating the details—instead serving patrons under plastic tarps like you might see at a rainyday wedding in the Gorge.

It’s a sad scene: Economic desperation further feeding into a public health crisis. A statewide freeze on indoor dining canceled the holiday season, typically the busiest month of the year for dining out. Now chefs are trying to salvage enough business to remain solvent until a vaccine arrives—even as COVID infections keep rising.

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) sees a better way.

In June, he introduced the Restaurants Act, a bill that would provide federal grants to mom-and-pop dining establishments. The relief makes up the difference between this year’s revenue and last year’s till. Blumenauer believes the it’s the last hope for much of Portland’s iconic food scene to survive the winter—without its streetscape being rendered unrecognizable by a tsunami of Applebee’s.

The U.S. House passed the Restaurants Act in October, but it’s fate will really be decided this week. It’s now part of the sausage-making in the U.S. Senate, where Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi are playing a game of chicken over a COVID economic stimulus bill.

For Blumenauer, it’s part of an unusually high-profile winter: He also wrote and championed a bill, passed by the House last week, that makes cannabis federally legal.

(That one’s going nowhere in the Senate, at least this year.)

He phoned in from Washington, D.C., to talk to WW about weed and the munchies.

why people in a position to help make this happen have been largely indifferent to the fate of independent restaurants. Part of the problem is that the National Restaurant Association intervened and they had a slightly different vision [for] the big chains like McDonald’s and Burger King and Kentucky Fried Whatever. Ironically, those big fast food franchise chains didn’t need the help—they are set up for takeaway food. In fact, many of them have seen their sales increase, but people wanted a bigger piece of the pie. It would have made the cost much, much higher.

So we’ve been working with 20 or fewer outlets, independently owned. I think that’s the right scale.

ident-elect Biden made specific reference to the needs that restaurants have. There’s an understanding that this legislation can work and will save money. I mean, $120 billion sounds like a lot of money. It is a lot of money, but the overall economic impact of this $120 billion would be $248 billion in savings—people paying taxes rather than going bankrupt. It’s a smart investment.

CHRISTINE DONG

MAN IN THE BUBBLE: Leroy Barber, aka Black Santa, will greet children from inside a giant plastic snowglobe this Christmas.

A Very COVI D Christmas The most wonderful time of the year is imperiled by a pandemic. Here’s how Portland is adapting.

It’s beginning to look…well, only somewhat like Christmas.

Sure, there are trees in windows and lights strewn across porches, and chances are someone’s already caught a buzz off some boozy eggnog. But like the rest of 2020, this holiday season just feels a bit off.

In Portland, many winter traditions are on hold. Peacock Lane is dark. Lloyd Center is a ghost town. Santa’s lap is off-limits, and the safest way to view the big Douglas fir in Pioneer Courthouse Square is via webcam.

If we’re being honest, most of us will have to settle for simply having a passable Christmastime this year. Everyone is stuck away from home, and not even the bars will be open to serve as surrogate family rooms.

But if there’s any tinsel lining this sad, emaciated, Charlie Brown-ass tree of a year, it’s the resourcefulness it has brought out from every corner of the city. And the holidays are no different.

In this issue, we highlight Portlanders who’ve refused to throw in the stocking, from the professional Santa who’ll greet kids from inside an actual plastic bubble (page 12) to the elephant keeper whose bright idea saved one of the zoo’s grandest events, and made it even more popular (page 16).

There’s the figure skating coach who drove six hours to the nearest open ice rink to give her students a chance to compete (page 13). There’s the veteran musician who’s adapting his long-running annual holiday concerts to television for the first time (page 15). And there’s the nursery reporting booming sales for real Christmas trees—and for its home setup service, which it calls “the Marriage Saver” (page 14).

Clearly, in this strange time, people are desperate for some semblance of traditional holiday cheer. And while it may be harder to find right now, it’s still out there. It might not look the same. But it can still be wonderful.

—Matthew Singer, WW Arts & Culture Editor Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

11

CHRISTINE DONG

A Worthy Claus Black Santa is coming to town— inside a giant inflatable snow globe.

FREE

See blacksantapdx.com to register.

Other Places to See Santa Claus Mad Greek Deli presents Virtual Chats with Santa calendly.com/Santa-madgreekdeli Why exactly is one of Portland’s best gyro spots setting up Zoom meetings with Kris Kringle? It’s probably best not to ask such questions and just accept an act of seasonal generosity when it comes along, especially this year. A 10-minute session is free, but donations are encouraged—where do you think that signature omega sauce comes from, anyway? It ain’t elven magic. Through Dec. 20.

A Christmas Story at Vancouver Mall 8700 NE Vancouver Mall Drive, shopvancouvermall.com.

Across the Columbia, our neighbors to the north have transformed their biggest shopping center into a walkable set themed after one of the lowkey weirdest movies to achieve holiday classic status. Will there be a leg lamp? You betcha. Santa will be there as well, but given social distancing requirements, he probably won’t be booting anyone down a giant slide.

Through Dec. 24.

Santaland at Lloyd Center

BY M ATT H E W S I N G E R

msinger@wweek.com

When Leroy Barber talks about spending the holidays in a bubble, he’s not referring to the metaphorical bubble we’re now all familiar with.

No, he means a literal plastic bubble—specifically, a 10-foot-tall, 10-foot-wide inflatable snow globe.

It’s the best way he could think of to preserve a tradition that, in his view, holds more significance than simply marking the season. Every year, Barber, 53, assumes the role of Black Santa—that is, the same holly-jolly reindeer whisperer seen on Coke cans and at shopping malls every December, except, well, he’s Black. He dons the classic red suit, white beard and stocking cap, and takes a seat in a prefabricated living room at the United Methodist Church in Northeast Portland, where he works as director of innovation. Hundreds of kids line up to crawl into his lap, and hundreds of parents tell him how important it is for their children to see a vision of Old Saint Nick that looks like them.

That can’t happen this year, at least not how it’s happened in the past. And so: the snow globe.

An associate found it on Amazon, retailing for $1,100. A crowdfunding campaign helped buy it. Now, it sits in Barber’s house, waiting to be deployed.

“I blew it up in my living room,” he says. “It definitely works.”

The plan is to inflate it in the parking lot of Tabor Heights United Methodist Church and allow families to drive up, one car at a time, to take photos from a pandemic-safe distance. He’s also going to throw it in the back of a pickup with a generator for a parade through Southeast Portland.

Barber chuckles at the idea: Santa living inside a bubble, just like the rest of us this year. But he wasn’t just going to cancel the event. He’s not the first Black Santa, of course, but in Portland, he’s one of few. And he knows firsthand how much representation matters—even in the realm of mythical figures.

12

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

“When a person sees themselves in something they admire, it helps their overall thought about themselves,” he says. “It can be, ‘I am OK. I am worth receiving a gift.’ It goes a long way.”

Growing up in Philadelphia, the only image of Santa Claus that Barber ever saw himself was of an old white man. He started dressing up as Santa when he lived in Atlanta, long enough ago that many of the kids he took photos with have children of their own now. He relocated to Portland in 2012 to take a job at a Christian anti-poverty nonprofit, eventually co-founding his own organization, the Voices Project, which helps train and support community leaders of color.

After coming into his current position with the United Methodists four years ago, Barber decided to bring the Santa suit out of the closet, in a city with much different racial demographics than where he started. He’d heard about the history of gentrification in Northeast Portland and figured that’d be the ideal place for Black Santa to put down roots.

The first year brought out about 100 people. It now regularly attracts around 500.

“Even though many of those folks don’t live there anymore, they have a connection with that area,” he says. “It touched a chord for people.”

It’s proven so popular, Barber recently loaded his snow globe into an RV and drove to Boise for event there.

The world being what it is, Barber has received complaints about Black Santa, probably from the same people who insist Idris Elba can’t play James Bond and the Tooth Fairy must be of European descent. “Santa is white. Get over it,” read one message.

But those are rare. More often, the response is gratitude—and not just from the little ones.

“It’s for kids, but I think we’re doing something for parents, too,” he says. “Something in them is fulfilled by having their kids do this.”

GO:

Black Santa Wonderland is at Tabor Heights Methodist Church, 6161 SE Stark St. 3-9 pm SaturdaySunday, Dec. 19-20.

The Black Santa Parade takes place 1:45-3 pm Saturday, Dec. 12.

Check the website blacksantapdx.com for route and to register.

2201 Lloyd Center, lloydcenter. com/santalandreservations.

Macy’s is closing and the ice rink is shut down, but there’s at least one tradition left standing at Portland’s most endangered shopping mall. Of course, some alterations are in place this year: Advance reservations are required to meet Santa, and all interactions will take place from a 6-foot distance. Maybe consider writing “PlayStation 5” on a paper airplane or something?

Through Dec. 24.

The Cinnamon Bear Holiday Show at Oaks Park 7805 SE Oaks Park Way, oakspark.com.

In Portland, Cinnamon Bear is like the Yuletide version of David S. Pumpkins: an obscure character the city has inexplicably gone all-in on. With his usual venue, the Portland Spirit, docked due to the pandemic, the department store teddy born Paddy O’Cinnamon makes his way to Oaks Park for a drive-in singalong featuring other classic merrymakers as Chipper the Squirrel(?), the Cocklebur Cowboys Band(???) and, in a supporting role, the Big Red Toy Machine himself. Any questions?!? Through Dec. 31.

WESLEY LAPOINTE

OTHER WINTER SPORTS YOU CAN STILL DO THIS SEASON

Skiing and Snowboarding Mt. Hood Meadows, 14040 OR-35, skihood.com; Timberline Lodge, 27500 E Timberline Road, timberlinelodge.com.

Mount Hood’s two major ski resorts are open for the season. And for the most part, neither will feel all that different from pre-COVID times. Lift lines are socially distanced, masks are required on chairlift rides, and Mt. Hood Meadows requires reserved tickets, along with upgrading the HVAC systems in its lodges. But once you hit the slopes, it’ll seem just like any other year.

Roller Skiing

DOUBLE AXEL ROSE: Mari Malama in front of Lloyd Center’s currently closed ice rink.

Thin Ice Portland figure skating coach Mari Malama has faced many professional challenges this year.

The toughest? Finding an open rink.

BY S HA N N O N G O R M L EY

sgormley@wweek.com

Last month, ice skating coach Mari Malama learned her home rink was about to close a few weeks before her student’s biggest competition of the year. So she did what any dedicated coach would do: pack up and drive to the nearest open rink.

Where was that? Six hours away in Klamath Falls.

“Skating in general, it always teaches you resilience,” she says. “But this year has been a really big test for all of us.”

Malama coaches teenage athletes who are part of Portland Ice Skating Club, the city’s oldest figure-skating association. Malama’s students are high-level, career-minded athletes who usually train for about six hours a day. Every year, all those hours culminate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championship Series, which crowns national champions and helps determine the country’s international teams.

This year, the competition is being held virtually.

Instead of traveling to a giant arena somewhere as usual, the 10 PISC athletes competing in this year’s championship had to perform their routines remotely, under the supervision of a proctor and with their coach filming on a cellphone from the sidelines. Competitors had a threeweek window, which closed earlier this week, to record and submit a video of their performance.

Malama coaches two skaters who are competing this year. She usually coaches at Sherwood Ice Arena. But in late November, the statewide freeze shutdown ice rinks across the state for the second time, barely two weeks before the competition’s Dec. 8 submission deadline.

Malama had to scramble to find another rink so her students could participate in the competition they had been training for all year.

“We didn’t know if our rink would reopen after the freeze,” she says. “For me as a coach, you need to provide stability for your athletes. If [the athletes] have a limited

time to submit the video, I didn’t want to uproot them a day before they have to submit.”

She found Klamath Falls’ Bill Collier Community Ice Rink. Since it’s outdoors, it’s one of the few rinks in the state that’s allowed to remain open. Two weeks ago, Malama, two of the students she coaches and their families drove from the Portland area to a resort by the rink, where they’ve been living ever since.

Malama didn’t think twice about relocating for almost a month. She says she and her students had been traveling as safely as possible, wearing masks and isolating themselves, except when hitting the ice.

“You do what you have to do, and you have to do whatever it is to get it done,” she says. “Having to pick up and go one way or another under short notice, we’re kind of unfazed by that already because it’s been happening so much this year.”

Her students and their parents have been scrambling since the beginning of the pandemic to prepare for the competition. In the early days of lockdown, Malama coached off-ice trainings over Zoom. When rings opened in Washington before Oregon, she and her students drove back and forth to train in Tacoma. Some skaters and their parents would spend the week in Tacoma and only come back home for the weekend. Early in the summer, when the nearest open rink was in Colorado, Malama and PISC drove to Colorado.

“This is happening all over the country,” says Malama.

“Skaters are doing whatever they can to get back on the ice.”

Now that the national championships are over, Malama isn’t sure what her next few months will look like. She hopes she can return to her home rink in Sherwood soon, but for now, it’s open by private reservation only.

“I hope to be back on our home ice,” she says. But if that’s not possible, “we will find ice, for sure.”

Rent roller skis at Mountain Shop, 2975 NE Sandy Blvd., mountainshop.net.

If leaving your neighborhood and dealing with even socially distanced crowds doesn’t sound like a good idea, there’s always roller skiing to keep your ski legs in shape. Roller skis are basically what they sound like— cross country skis with wheels, made for training on dry ground. Here in Portland, the Springwater Corridor is arguably the most popular roller-skiing spot, since it provides 21 miles of smooth, mostly flat trail.

Snow Biking Wanoga Snow Play Area, Cascade Lakes Highway, Bend, 541-383-4000.

Yes, it’s a thing. The relatively niche fat-tire sport has a dedicated following in Bend, where ample snowmobile and mountain bike trails get covered with snow each winter. Most of those trails are open, but if you don’t already have a bike with wide tires, rental options during the pandemic are limited. And, of course, traveling during a pandemic is strongly discouraged. So if you live in Portland, you’ll have to cross your fingers for a rare Willamette Valley snowstorm.

Snowshoeing Rent snowshoes at Next Adventure, 426 SE Grand Ave., nextadventure.net, or Mountain Shop, 2975 NE Sandy Blvd., mountainshop.net.

Since it’s basically just hiking but on snow with weird shoes, the only COVID-19 restrictions on snowshoeing are the odd closed trails. And if your navigation and safety skills are honed enough, it’s the perfect socially distant sport: Snowshoeing makes it easy to go off trail and traverse ground that’d normally be too thick with brush.

Tubing Mt. Hood Skibowl, 87000 US-26, skibowl.com.

The affordable mountain sport of choice for those of us who are too scared to ski, tubing is still on this winter.

Skibowl hasn’t opened its ski tracks yet, but the tubing slides are open for business, including for its popular, neon-illuminated “cosmic tubing” on weekend nights.

Of course, face masks and social distancing are required, as are reservations for non-passholders.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

13

MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

OTHER PLACES TO GET A CHRISTMAS TREE IN PORTLAND

Pine and Dandy

Furrow Farm

GREEN DAYS: Christmas tree sales at Cornell Farm are up 47% so far in 2020.

Christmas tree sales are booming this year— and one Portland farm wants to make sure buying one won’t wreck your marriage.

BY AN DI P R E W I T T

aprewitt@wweek.com

First they came for the houseplants.

Then, as the pandemic wore on, people still sequestering at home returned to Cornell Farm in Southwest Portland to stock up on seeds and supplies to create edible gardens.

Now, with the holidays upon us, customers are relying on the 33-year-old nursery to provide them with another green jolt of joy to close out a particularly difficult year: Christmas trees.

“November was up 47%,” says Cornell Farm’s president, Deby Barnhart. “That’s pretty dramatic.”

In the past few years, sales data shows American consumers prefer to celebrate the holidays around artificial trees. But this year, that trend appears to be reversing.

Barnhart couldn’t yet say whether the spike in sales was due to virus-weary regulars looking to jump-start the holiday season or a newfound desire by first-time shoppers to embrace nature, messy needles and all. Anecdotally, however, she suspects the latter.

“In my personal conversations, there definitely are people who are choosing to do a live tree this year,” says Barnhart. “I think it’s because people are so isolated they just want something real around them.”

The National Christmas Tree Association is also left to speculate about a possible boost in business, since its annual consumer survey of the nation’s approximately 15,000 individual farms doesn’t begin until January 2021.

(Fun fact: Oregon is the top Christmas tree producer in the country.) But the organization has received observational data that it’s been a robust year so far, with many growers opening before Thanksgiving, and the pandemic has something to do with that.

“Because of COVID, people want a real tree for a change, and we’re glad we can help in some way with what we’re calling the ‘COVID blues,’” says spokesperson Doug Hundley. “People are obviously distraught from the stress, and if people are turning to real trees this year because they’re home more than normal and they want some traditional good Christmas cheer, we’re glad to help a little.”

Another factor that could be boosting sales is the relative safety of the activity during a pandemic that has pushed everyone outdoors. Most Christmas tree shopping takes place in open air, whether on multiacre farms or corner lots lit up by strands of bulbs.

Then there’s the hunt itself. So many other rituals aren’t safe this year: No one will raise a toast at the Holi14

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

day Ale Fest, Peacock Lane has gone dark, and Santa’s lap is off-limits. But tromping around in the woods and then felling a 7-footer with a saw? Not only is it easy for parties to keep their distance, it also provides an outlet to release some of that pent-up pandemic rage.

At Cornell Farm, though, the chopping has already been done for you. Barnhart orders only No. 1 trees—“perfect, premium” firs from growers in Oregon and Southwest Washington that she’s built trusted relationships with over the years.

But there’s still a thrill to be had in finding the one best suited as your living room centerpiece. Displayed in neat rows near the front of the property on Southwest Barnes Road, the trees are organized by type and then height, with a wealth of detailed coniferous knowledge provided by signs and masked employees alike.

All you have to do is debate the merits of the dense, fragrant branches of a grand fir versus the more sparse, dramatic look of a wild noble, also known as “Charlie Brown’s tree of choice.” Don’t even ask about those silvertips, though—Cornell Farm sold out back in October during pre-ordering.

The surge in demand for real Christmas trees at this former dairy farm is just the latest plant there that’s been swooped up by housebound customers since the virus limited mobility. Barnhart sees the drive for authentic evergreens as an extension of spring and summer’s boost in pandemic gardens in backyards and succulent superblooms inside homes. It’s part nesting, part distraction.

“I think people have taken a step back from their crazy lives and refocused a bit on their personal environment, and a lot of that is indoor plants as well as outdoor plants,” she says. “You’re going to be here for the foreseeable future. Why not enhance it and make it more livable or beautiful—your paradise?”

And for anyone who needs assistance turning their home into a Christmas-themed state of bliss, Cornell Farm can simply drop a tree off in your driveway or even set it up inside for you. The “Marriage Saver” package has been a feature there for at least 10 years, but is now an attractive option for Barnhart’s customers who tell her they’re still avoiding public places because of concerns about COVID. During the installation, the employee remains masked and minimizes the time spent indoors.

“The Marriage Saver concept has been really popular, because it truly is a marriage saver,” Barnhart says, laughing. “You can’t believe how many couples, when they hear [we have] that, they just howl.”

25877 NW West Union Road, Hillsboro, 503-647-5288, furrowfarm.com.

Nearly 10 years ago, Grimm helped ignite Hollywood’s interest in Portland as a backdrop for prime-time TV shows. Though the supernatural crime procedural ended in 2017, fans can still get their fix by visiting locations where filming took place, including this farm. Multiple snowy, moonlit Christmas episodes were set on this third-generation grower’s property. Consider the trees here the state’s cover model: They’ve been featured in both Better Homes and Gardens and Fred Meyer ads.

Sleighbells of Sherwood 23855 SW 195th Place, Sherwood, 503-625-6052, sleighbellsgiftshop. business.site.

You can start Christmas as early as July 1 at Sleighbells, which is when this tree farm on the outskirts of Sherwood officially kicks off its season. Most come here for the Christmas cottage, where you can help yourself to a cup of hot chocolate or purchase sweets from a counter devoted solely to displaying the housemade fudge.

Helvetia Christmas Tree Farm

GO: Cornell Farm Nursery & Cafe, 8212 SW Barnes Road, 503-292-9895.

9 am-6 pm SundayThursday, 9 am-7 pm FridaySaturday.

12814 NW Bishop Road, Hillsboro, 503-334-0905, helvetia-christmas-tree-farm.com.

If you’re the type who eternally holds out hope for a rare white Christmas, then this farm is where you should tree hunt. Thanks to a machine, it snows here every few minutes. You can get even cozier by huddling around one of the fire pits and roasting marshmallows (one pit per family due to COVID) and then let your kids ride out their sugar high on one of the property’s tractor trains.

Christmas Mountain Choose and Cut 25470 NW Dixie Mountain Road, Scappoose, 503-621-3169, christmasmountaintrees.com.

If the name itself doesn’t immediately put you in the holiday spirit—it sounds like you’d be journeying through a candy cane forest with a floor dusted in powdered sugar—the extras will temporarily lift you out of that pandemic funk. While entry will be through an online ticketing system this year, many favorites remain, including visits with Santa and Mrs. Claus (behind plexiglass), fresh wreaths made onsite, bonfires and miniature deer fashioned out of logs.

Church Songs

OTHER WAYS TO HEAR HOLI DAY MUSIC THIS YEAR

Musician Michael Allen Harrison’s Christmas concerts are a Portland holiday tradition.

This year, he’s coming straight into your home.

BY M AT T H E W S I N G E R

msinger@wweek.com

For the first time in 30 years, Michael Allen Harrison will be home for Christmas.

As a gigging musician, he’s been home a lot in 2020 already. But this time of year is usually the busiest for the 62-year-old pianist. Outside the season, Harrison is something like Portland’s John Tesh, a composer whose work straddles the genres of contemporary classical, New Age and pop. Once the clock strikes midnight on Thanksgiving, though, he turns into a one-man Mannheim Steamroller. His run of nightly holiday shows at downtown’s Old Church routinely draw 7,500 people throughout the month.

It’s a tradition on par with the tree lighting at Pioneer Courthouse Square, the lights at Peacock Lane, and the choirs at the Grotto.

And just like all of them, Harrison is having to do things differently this year. He’s only giving one performance, and it’s already done—a pretaped concert that’ll air on KGWTV on Dec. 10.

It’s not quite how he imagined marking his 30th anniversary as the Lawrence Welk of Portland. But Harrison isn’t complaining.

For one thing, he’ll get to spend the holiday with his family instead of a room full mostly of strangers. And after three decades of having his career running essentially on autopilot, he’s relishing having to scramble to make stuff happen again.

“I really feel like I’m on the hamster wheel again, like when I first started professionally at 28 years old,” Harrison says. “There’s a certain fire that happens when you’re on guard where you’ve got to make it happen.

You are unemployed until the next gig.”

At least, that’s how he feels now. Back in March, when the world first shut down, what Harrison mostly felt was panic. Getting gigs was never a problem for him—prepandemic, he’d play two or three times a week. It was easy enough that he’d never bothered with the trappings of being a musician in the digital age. Without any gigs to get, Harrison found himself effectively starting from

scratch.

It didn’t take long for him to adjust. He taught himself how to edit videos and began filling his barren YouTube page with solo performances filmed in his home studio. He also started a series of daily “anti-anxiety” music videos—originals and requested covers set over calming images, delivered to his fans’ inboxes every morning.

But the Christmas shows still weighed on his mind. He kept a close watch on the state’s shifting coronavirus policies—one of his piano students is the son of Nik Blosser, until recently Gov. Kate Brown’s chief of staff, and he wasn’t shy about nudging him for inside information. When it became clear that a concert with fans in the pews was not going to happen, Harrison went to his backup plan: a TV special.

“I know all the folks at all the stations, and KGW was the first one I called,” he says.

“Within three hours, the decision was made to have a Christmas special, and he gave me a date. All in one day.”

With Christmas at the Old Church, Harrison’s goal wasn’t just to get up and perform his interpretations of the classic carols and Yuletide standards he’s been playing for decades but to translate the live concert experience as closely as possible. That meant including all the segments regulars have come to expect: the Charlie Brown medley.

The percussion breakdown on “Little Drummer Boy.” Singer Julianne Johnson’s gospel rendition of “Silent Night.” At one point, legendary Blazers announcer Bill Schonely recites a poem and sings a verse of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” The show will air only once, but it’ll be made available for streaming online through the end of the year.

Harrison can’t say if it’ll come close to replicating the feeling of being there in person. But this year, he knows retaining any small bit of tradition helps.

“I recorded a thank-you where I say, ‘I hope we were able to bring you some extra joy,’” he says. “That’s the whole intent.”

Low Bar Chorale Facebook.com/lowbarchorale. 7 pm Friday, Dec. 18. Free, donations accepted.

The drop-in choir’s annual Cheer the Fuck Up showcase is still on—virtually, of course. The Christmas edition of the Facebook Live singalong show will feature veteran Portland blues singer LaRhonda Steele and mainstay comedian Jason Rouse, plus the debut of a “virtual chorus.”

The Portland Revels Portlandrevels.org. 7:30 pm Friday, Dec. 18, and Thursday, Dec. 24; 2 pm Sunday, Dec. 20. Pay what you will.

This year, the Portland Revels’ ode to traditional song, dance and storytelling will take place as a webcast. The show will follow “the Revels Fool on a quest to find the light.” At the end of 2020, that sounds very relatable.

SEE IT: Christmas at the Old Church airs on KGW at 7 pm Thursday, Dec. 10.

Portland Gay Men’s Chorus presents Snowed In Pdxgmc.org. 8 pm Saturday and 3 pm Sunday, Dec. 12-13. Free, donations accepted.

The Portland Gay Men’s Chorus has dubbed their socially distanced holiday stream “Snowed In,” so we can all pretend we’re trapped inside due to scenic seasonal weather instead of a pandemic. There’ll be performances by PGMC’s a cappella and dance groups and Pink Martini’s Jimmie Herrod plus a group singalong.

Pickathon Solstice Party Pickathon.com. 6 pm Saturday, Dec. 19. $10.

Music festivals might’ve been canceled in 2020, but Pickathon still spent the summer cranking out archival videos of past sets. Its solstice show will be live and interactive, featuring sets by local funk and soul band Outer Orbit and Portland-by-way-of-Arizona country singer Kassi Valazza.

It’s not holiday music per se, but maybe someone will bust out “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

15

MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

GO:

ZooLights at the Oregon Zoo, 4001 SW Canyon Road, oregonzoo.org.

OTHER PLACES TO SEE HOLI DAY LIGHTS IN PORTLAND Christmas Ships

Gorillas in the Headlights An elephant keeper at the Oregon Zoo suggested turning ZooLights into a drive-thru. It’s been a runaway success.

BY AA RO N M E S H

amesh@wweek.com

When the Oregon Zoo turned its annual holiday light display into a drive-thru, the scheme was a last resort.

Nikki Simmons didn’t expect ZooLights to become more popular than ever.

“We’re seeing people coming who haven’t come in years,” says the zoo’s events coordinator. “They say, ‘It’s too cold,’ or ‘I can’t walk over those hills,’ or ‘I don’t want to chase my kids.’”

One of the enduring lessons of 2020 is that almost anything can be turned into a drive-thru. But what Simmons also realized is that letting people tour an attraction by automobile increases accessibility for people who are typically shut out. That means seniors, people with disabilities, and families with small children who found strolling the grounds daunting are now visiting via minivan.

In fact, the zoo’s customer satisfaction surveys show higher scores for the nightly car safari than for the past several years of ZooLights.

One of those satisfied customers? A zoo employee who took his 93-year-old mother on the trip. “He said that she was so excited, and talked about it the whole way home,” Simmons says. “He’s now her favorite of her six children.”

Simmons says the idea for a drive-thru ZooLights came from an unlikely source. “It was actually an elephant keeper who brought up the idea,” she says. “We had been thinking about it a little bit, idea-cloud style. And we got an email one day from the elephant team, and it was a keeper that was like, ‘Why don’t we do a drive-thru?’”

So when Gov. Kate Brown in November announced a statewide freeze on entertainment venues—including zoo

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

visits—Simmons appealed to Brown’s office to let the car caravans continue. Brown said yes, a tremendous relief to zoo officials, who typically see up to 14,000 people a night walking amid the twinkling lights each holiday season.

That’s millions of dollars in revenue. So Simmons spent months working on a route and other logistics to guide vehicles through the grounds. The cars travel at 3 mph around the edge of the zoo, away from the animals.

(Stress measurements on the residents have shown no changes.) Patrons can order refreshments in advance—hot cocoa, elephant ears and caramel corn—and pick them up through the driver’s side window.

Zoo officials expected to accommodate 600 cars a night. Instead, they’re averaging 1,040 each evening—240 vehicles an hour.

If there’s any snag to the triumph, it’s that Metro, the regional government that owns the zoo, has been one of the Portland area’s most prominent champions of alternative transportation. Simmons acknowledges the tension.

“Turning into a car culture, it’s a little counterintuitive to the things that we see in Portland,” she says. “But I think it does make sense for the pandemic. A lot of people aren’t comfortable getting on public transportation, and they still need to find ways to get here and there. And then they still want to experience light shows for the holidays.”

And for this year, by car is how Portlanders will experience ZooLights. The initial plan was to prepare both a walking and driving route. But Simmons and her colleagues don’t think the governor is going to let attractions reopen any time soon.

“We just don’t think the walk will happen,” she says, “so we’re starting to move those lights into the drive path.”

See christmasships.org for route.

The Willamette stays lit. The festive flotilla is in its 66th year and has the distinction of being the longest continuously lighted boat parade in the country. Through Dec. 22.

Clackamas County Winter Fair

694 NE 4th Ave., Canby, clackamas.us/fair.

Oregon fairgrounds have hosted drive-thru food courts and haunted houses this year, so it makes sense they’d also pivot to holiday light shows. This one spans a quarter-mile, including a 100-foot illuminated tunnel. Through Dec. 31.

Winter Wonderland at Portland International Raceway

1940 N Victory Blvd., 503-823-7223, winterwonderlandportland.com.

Portland International Raceway was doing drive-thru holiday light shows before it was cool. Over 250 installations surround the track, making it (allegedly) the biggest display in the Pacific Northwest. Through Jan 2.

Beaverton Winter Lights

Multiple locations; see beavertonoregon.gov/474/Winter-Lights.

Peacock Lane voluntarily pulled the plug this year, but Beaverton has five separate displays spread around town to burn your retinas with merriment. Through Jan 3.

Sponsored Content

N

obody knows you like your local merchant. Every year, when you want a gift that says you care about the little details, you shop locally.

That’s especially true this year—when Portland’s small businesses are hurting.

It’s another way of caring: putting holiday

spending back into our hometown.

We’ve worked with some of our favorite Portland shops and brands this year to present you a list of gifts that all help to lift spirits as we wait out this pandemic in the winter months.

Soothe & Calm All Natural Tengries, Charcoal

79

$

Medical-Grade Skincare

Chalice

prices vary

Aces Joint Repair

60

$

Kyrgies Embark on the Great Indoor with the new standard in house shoes. Let Tengries take you on your next stay-at-home adventure. kyrgies.com

Sage Street Trading Co

Skin By Lovely Give the gift of skincare this season! With aesthetic dermatology practices in Portland and Lake Owego, Skin

by Lovely offers a carefully curated selection of medicalgrade skincare that is clinically proven to address key skincare concerns, including the signs of aging, skin dryness, discoloration and more. skinbylovely.com | 971-303-8060 2311 NW Northrup

Topicals & Tinctures | 30% off Holiday Partners Gifting is an essential part of the holidays and finding that perfect something isn’t always easy.

To help, Chalice has curated a selection of favorites from tinctures to topicals, sure to impress any cannabis enthusiast on your list.

Aces is a CBD-infused joint repair rub that harnesses the power of hemp. Natural, ultraconcentrated cannabinoids with calming menthol provide nextlevel, all-purpose relief from aches, pains and strains. For someone who needs relief, Aces will do the work. sagestreettrading.com

chalicefarmsmagazine.com

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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Sponsored Content

Experience Give a Brick Today!

Barbari CBD Herbal Spliffs

$

$

125

10 - 30 $

Barbari Barbari CBD Herbal Spliffs are a mix of effect based herbal blends with a low dose of sustainably grown highCBD hemp flower. They’re flavorful and aromatic: your everyday smoke-break essential. Individually-dosed Barbari CBD Herbal Spliffs are available in two-pack and five-pack options. 5% of each sale goes to organizations that support the health and healing of womxn, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Pioneer Courthouse Square This holiday season—join the over 80,000 Portlanders who own a piece of our city’s living room. Buy a personalized brick in Pioneer Courthouse Square. Gift wrapping available!

barbariherbals.com | IG @barbari.herbals

thesquarepdx.org

5-Card Monthly Postcard Subscription

19

Holiday eGift Card Available in Any Amount

$

Splash Brainstorm Snowboard

314.30

$

Oregon Symphony

The Postcard Maven The Postcard Maven curates the finest postcard designs on the market to send subscribers a varied mix of amazing postcards every month. Each subscription includes postage for all five cards, making it fun and easy for the recipient to keep in touch with all their favorite people via post! subscribe.thepostcardmaven.com

Share the Joy of Music this Holiday Season.

Purchase an Oregon Symphony eGift Card for anyone on your list for any amount, and get a 20% discount for a pair of 20-21 concert tickets for yourself! orsymphony.org/holiday

Next Adventure The Slash Brainstorm is a versatile directional twin snowboard that is ready to decimate open powder runs, cliff drops, or park sessions alike. Featuring a medium flex, the Brainstorm is comfortable riding steeps at high speeds or taking surfy and buttery turns in powder. If you need one board to do it all, it’s a no-brainer; the Brainstorm is for you. nextadventure.net Portland, Sandy, & Scappoose

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

Sponsored Content

Experience JUNK | Holy Moly O's and Marshmallow Super Bon Bons

12

$

A p p a re l & J e w e l r y Enchanting Emerald & Cedar Earrings

Outdoor Research Apollo Rain Jacket

$

$

250

99

Leif Goods Buzz your way through the season with these potent little treats from Leif Goods’ Junk confections line. Crème filled cookies covered with chocolate pair perfectly with two scrumptious vegan marshmallows wrapped up in tasty dark chocolate and topped with a hint of chocolate sea salt. Available at fine dispensaries. leifgoods.com

Stone Anvil The gift you keep for yourself! Enchanting emerald and silver cedar branch earrings will dazzle and delight. Stone Anvil is artistcreated jewelry, meticulously handcrafted here in Portland. We offer gender-affirming styles with sizing for everybody and every BODY. Visit our website to see the whole collection!

Mountain Shop Designed with the Pacific Northwest’s rainy winters in mind, the Outdoor Research Apollo Rain Jacket wicks the wet away and provides essential waterproof protection for any weather forecast. mountainshop.net | 2975 NE Sandy Blvd

stoneanviljewelry.com

Holiday Scratch-its

Abstract Landscape 5 Panel Hat

Original Organic Cotton Underwear

$

$

$

1-20

Oregon Lottery Five festive and fun designs make Holiday Scratch-its the perfect gift for all those hard-to-shop-for adults on your list. You can find them virtually anywhere, even up to the last minute. Perfect for white elephant exchanges, stuffing stockings and more. Make the holidays jolly with Oregon Lottery Scratch-its! oregonlottery.com/holiday

28

24

Tender Loving Empire Perfect for any style or situation, this olive green 5 panel hat protects from rain, sun and everything in between. tenderlovingempire.com | 412 SW 10th Ave 525 NW 23rd Ave | 3541 SE Hawthorne Blvd Bridgeport Village | PDX Airport

Thunderpants USA Organic Cotton underwear made in Portland. Thunderpants are designed not to ride up or roll down, can you say no wedgies? Ethically made, long lasting fabric, and fun prints. thunderpantsusa.com Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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SHOP LOCAL. SHOP GREEN. When it comes to renewable power options, the PGE Green Future program is the top choice among local, sustainable businesses. Make them your top choice for the holidays this year — and enjoy stress-free shopping online.

Many thanks than to these renewable businesses supporting a cleaner, greener Oregon: • Refuge Coffee House — refugecoffeepdx.com • Belmont Books — facebook.com/belmontbookspdx • Closets to Go — closetstogo.com • Hello From Portland — hellofromportland.net • King Duke’s — kingdukes.com Or Leather Co. — oroxleather.com • Orox • Vent — ventpdx.com

Learn more about renewable power options at: PORTLANDGENERAL.COM/GREENFUTURE

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

Sponsored Content

For Friday Nights Curated Cannabis Subscription Box

The Oregon Ducks Tumbler

Pinners Pack

$

$

$

100

48

20

Legends Drinkware Junk by Leif Goods Step aside fruit-of-the-month club, Green Box subscribers are receiving top-shelf cannabis in their boxes. Selecting only the best Oregon has to offer, boxes are stuffed with a variety of top-shelf flowers, edibles, topicals and tinctures. More than any other subscription, you know this box will put a smile on their face. pdxgreenbox.com

The greatest gift you can give a Ducks fan (other than a championship) is their very own Ducks glass. Locally made in Northwest Portland, these officially licensed Oregon Ducks 10 oz pints and 16 oz tumblers are hand blown using lead-free, eco-friendly glass. A 3D Oregon logo is blown into the bottom of every glass.

Sway Blunts These tiny blunts will remind you of smoking a spliff with their satisfying throat hit, but have a much different effect, and much less impact on your lungs than a tobacco product.

High Desert Nectar CBD, rolled in rich hemp paper, for a quick, satisfying smoke. This little pack of 10 fits anywhere, and comes with matches. Great stocking stuffer! 1/3 gram of High Desert Nectar CBD, wrapped in a rich hemp paper.

Legends Drinkware puts pride & tradition in the palm of your hand. www.LegendsDrinkware.com

swayblunts.com

Cannabis Beverages

Wilco - Summerteeth Deluxe Edition 5LP

$

$

5-96

Magic Number Liven up the holidays with Oregon’s most delicious live resin beverages and tasty tinctures. Brewed in Bend and made with all natural ingredients and single-strain cannabis, we can be found in dispensaries throughout Oregon. Celebrate life, experience the liquid revolution and discover your Magic Number.

100

Everyday Music This deluxe set features the remastered studio album as well as the unreleased demos, alternates and outtake recordings pressed on 180-gram vinyl. www.everydaymusic.com

drinkmagicnumber.com

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

21

Sponsored Content

House & Home Mug Gift Set

Oregon, My Oregon

Folk-Inspired Jan Kath Handmade Rug

$

$

Priced Individually

Tea Chai Te

Timber Press

Christiane Millinger Handmade Rugs

Gift set includes one Tea Chai Te logo ceramic mug in pink, mint or ivory colors. Comes with one 100 pack of paper filters, one tea tasting note pad with tea tasting wheel and one tin of customer’s choice of tea.

From the high desert of Central Oregon and the vistas of the Columbia River Gorge to the farms of the Willamette Valley, Oregon’s natural wonders abound. In Oregon, My Oregon, the photographers at Photo Cascadia have captured this magical place in a stunning, gift-worthy book.

This rug is part of a new folk-art inspired line from Jan Kath, the Common Threads Collection.

Drawing inspiration from darning samplers dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, the designs delightfully transform patterns and techniques rooted in the past into bold modern masterpieces for the home. Raised silk pile on woven wool and hemp field.

timberpress.com

christianemillinger.com | 2037 NW Lovejoy

35

teachaite.com

Spring Bouquet

Contemporary Planters

Assorted Buddhas

$

$

$

Woonwinkel

City Liquidators

Infuse your home with happiness and color. This symbolic gift is a sweet promise that spring is coming. It’s a simple 3-D object to build with loved ones or as a meditative moment alone.

Comes flat-packed.

Mid-century Modern styled circular and rectangular planters that are great for indoors or out. Several styles to choose from.

Medium size rectangular is 13”Hx17”wx8”D and Large 15”Hx21”wx10”D

18

woonwinkelhome.com 935 SW Washington St

22

30

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

39.99 & 59.99 $

cityliquidators.com | 823 SE 3rd Ave

29.99 & UP

City Liquidators Various decorative buddhas in several sizes and styles. cityliquidators.com | 823 SE 3rd Ave

Sponsored Content

House & Home

Food & Drink

Psychedelia Throw Blanket

The Core 4

$

$

225

37.99

Lonesome Pictopia This luxurious 100% cotton throw features an original large-scale floral pattern by all-woman wallpaper company Lonesome Pictopia.

Made in the USA and clocking in at a huge 54” x 70” (no cold toes, ever!), this blanket features rich jewel tones, and is an homage to the far-out floral designs of 1970s-does-Art Nouveau. lonesomepictopia.com

Hopworks Urban Brewery Satisfy every beer drinker’s palate this holiday with Hopworks’ sustainable Core 4 Case! Each Core 4 contains a 6-pack of: Powell IPA, Robot Panda Hazy IPA, Golden Hammer Organic Lager, and Tree Frog Organic Pale Ale. Need a nice winter warmer too? Add a 6-pack of Abominable for just $8.99! hopworksbeer.com | 2944 SE Powell Blvd

The Ritual Rug

188

$

Holiday Medley

75

$

Ma Wovens Create a special space for yoga or meditation with The Ritual Rug. Designed in Portland by a local artist and ethically handwoven in India with organic hemp and non toxic foam. Comfortable, beautiful and made to last- a truly unique and thoughtful gift! ma-wovens.com

Montinore Estate Give the gift of wine, and have it delivered. Enjoy special savings on curated holiday wine collections from Montinore Estate, like this “Holiday Medley” set, featuring the Roulette Pinot Gris, Reserve Pinot Noir and limited L’Orange. They offer free delivery with a hand-written note within 25 miles of the winery. montinore.com | 3663 SW Dilley Rd, Forest Grove

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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Sponsored Content

Food & Drink Chocolate Library

Something For Everyone Kit

$

$

90

81

Greater Goods The ultimate sampler of all six flavors of Greater Goods hand crafted, organic chocolate bars! Included are Mint Hibiscus, Orange Ginger, Mocha Crunch, Strawberry, Milk & Cookies and their super chill CBN Evening Bar. All bars are infused with conscientiously sourced hemp CBD oil and made to make you smile. hellogreater.com | 1323 SE 7th Ave

Angela Vineyards

Holiday Gift Basket

75 - 110

$

$

A Pinot Noir, a Chardonnay, and a Sparkling walk into a bar‌ and become the merriest of holiday gifts.

Angela Vineyards festive 3-pack includes a bottle of our 2017 Angela Vineyards Pinot Noir, 2018 Angela Vineyards Chardonnay, and 2015 Graham Beck Blanc de Blanc, a perfect way to try something new! shop.angelaestate.com | 11311 NE Bayliss Rd, Carlton

A Taste of Oregon

73

$

Cowbell Cheese Shop Give your favorite cheese lover a festive upgrade this holiday. The Cowbell Cheese Shop offers gift baskets and cheese boards with unique hand selected European and American artisan cheese and specialty goods. Order online or come chat with their cheesemongers who love sharing knowledge and discussing food lore to help with your selection. cowbellpdx.square.site | 231 SE Alder St

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

Willamette Valley Vineyards Give the gift of authentic, sustainably-produced Oregon wine this holiday season. Visit Willamette Valley Vineyards Tasting Room for unique gift packages, like this, featuring their most loved wines and locally-made items, or purchase online. wvv.com | 8800 Enchanted Way SE, Turner

Sponsored Content

Food & Drink DockBox Gift Card

Give Back Donation to Your Favorite Nonprofit

Price Varies

Give!Guide Give back to Portland on behalf of someone else. Give!Guide makes it easy with 174 local nonprofits all in one spot. Give before the end of the year at giveguide.org and indicate who you’re donation honors in your donation. giveguide.org

DockBox by Local Ocean Local Ocean Seafoods, the Oregon Coast’s favorite seafood restaurant is now offering DockBox—a weekly seafood-focused meal kit. Pick up in Portland, Corvallis, Bend and Newport – the best seafood experience of your life. localdockbox.com | Portland pick-up is SE 8th & Salmon

Driftwood Manhattan

24.95

$

New Deal Distillery Tis the season to fix yourself a drink! New Deal Distillery ready-todrink bottled Manhattan contains the perfect combination of rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. Just stir with ice and garnish with a cherry.

Curbside Pickup and local delivery available.

Newdealdistillery.com 900 SE Salmon St

Visit our website to make an appointment or shop online 717 SW 10th Ave Portland, OR 97205 503.223.4720 www.maloys.com

Finger food for the holidays You can now shop online, or book an appointment to visit for fine antique and custom jewelry, or for repair work. We also buy.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

25

FOOD & DRINK

Editor: Matthew Singer / Contact: msinger@wweek.com Food & Drink Event Listings by Andi Prewitt / aprewitt@wweek.com

TREVOR GAGNIER

TAKE ME OUT

BUZZARD’S BAY & THE ANGIE ™ The Names

The bacon, egg and cheese “Buzzard’s Bay” ($7), a “classic eggwich,” pays tribute to the body of water near New Bedford, while “The Angie” with butter and jelly ($4) is named for a family friend that Fletch refers to as a “second mother.” She’s the woman who introduced him to most Portuguese baked goods, especially during holidays. “One of the most incredible people in the world,” he says.

“Without her, I don’t think bolo levedos would be on my radar.”

TREVOR GAGNIER

Mass. Appeal

™ The Bolo

Lottie & Zula’s replaces a Portland dining pioneer with a New England take on Portuguese muffins.

BY JAS O N CO H E N

@cohenesque

In the Azores Islands of Portugal, they’re bolo levedos.

In the fishing and beach towns of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, “Portuguese muffins.” Whatever you call the sweetish, griddled breadstuff, John-Fletcher Halyburton knew he had to have them for Lottie & Zula’s, the New England-inspired sandwich joint he and his sister Emily Peterson recently opened in the former Toro Bravo spot on Northeast Russell.

The plan was to bring them in frozen from a childhood favorite bakery, Amaral’s in Fall River, Mass. But then Halyburton—who goes by “Fletch”—happened to mention Portuguese muffins to Lottie & Zula’s coffee roaster, Christopher Hall of Push X Pull Buckman.

“His jaw kind of hit the floor,” says Fletch. “He was like, ‘Wait. You mean bolo levedos. You’re not gonna believe this, but we actually carry them here.’”

That’s because wholesale baker Jenna Legge—who is “Jen’s Bagels and Pastries” on her own, as well as one-half of the COVID-delayed Southwest Portland brick-andmortar Jen & Bee’s—is from New Bedford, the heart of New England’s Portuguese American fishing community, and just 25 miles from Fletch’s hometown of Bristol, R.I. Legge, who only recently discovered she was of Portuguese ancestry, had been teaching herself how to make bolos mostly for her own consumption, but she also began offering them to clients, including Push X Pull.

Now, those bolos are the heart of the Lottie & Zula’s breakfast menu. The sturdy but tender flat bun—something like a cross between an English muffin and a King’s Hawaiian roll—makes for a really satisfying bacon, egg and cheese, with some of the same sweet richness as a McGriddle or a Monte Cristo, though not nearly as over the top.

Lottie & Zula’s New England theme—the restaurant’s slogan is “Not a Lot of Fuss, Just a Wicked Good Sandwich”—continues at lunch, with fairly classic East Coast items: tuna melt, meatball, hot or cold Italian grinder, made on either sliced bread or sub rolls. Same are named after favorite spots from Halyburton’s childhood, as well as the movie Fletch (for obvious reasons), and the colorful/criminal former mayor of Providence, Buddy Cianci.

It’s blue-collar food from high-end cooks with Masshole attitude. The cheeseburger grinder—one or two beef patties on a sub roll with all the fixings of both a burger and a sub—is called “My Guy D’Angelo” after the Rhode Island sandwich chain D’Angelo’s, which, according to the Lottie & Zula’s website, has “kind of gone to shit these days.”

The ultimate goal is to be a full-service East Coast style deli/market, but for now it’s a well-managed takeout operation, with delivery by bike courier CCC, a separate pickup window and a colorful street art mural obscuring the fact that you’re outside what used to be one of Portland’s most beloved and bustling high-end restaurant spaces.

The change is one of many on that stretch of Russell between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Williams Avenue, most of which happened prepandemic: Gone are Secret Society (now a yoga studio), Bunk Bar (now Cliff’s Bar) and Russell St. BBQ (slated to become a Killer Burger in 2021), while the lack of music at the Wonder Ballroom keeps the whole block quiet.

By default, that makes Lottie & Zula’s the loudest spot on the block. Here’s what to know about the two items most worth yelling about.

One of Fletch’s favorite things about bolos is they already have a “skin”—that lightly brown exterior from their initial griddled bake. Once they get to Lottie & Zula’s, they’re sliced, crisped up in the oven, given an additional toast under the salamander, and finished with butter and salt.

™ The Bacon, Egg and Cheese(s)

The bacon is from Carlton Farms and the eggs free range, but the key to the Buzzard’s Bay is double cheese: Tillamook sharp yellow cheddar for flavor and good old American for meltiness. If you like a runny egg sandwich, you’ll have to wait until COVID-19 is over, given the realities of takeout and delivery. “For now, we break the yolk and cook the egg to medium,” says Fletch. “It travels better and is cleaner to eat in your car or after 30 minutes.”

™ The Jelly

On the opening menu, The Angie came with butter and spiced grape jelly, including such flavorings as cinnamon and allspice. It’s based on a recipe by Fletch’s father, who makes it with Concord grapes from the backyard. But it’s also seasonal, and the restaurant’s first batch is already tapped. “It doesn’t really taste the same when you don’t have fresh fruit to work with,” Fletch says. He’s working on some different freezer jams to rotate in until the grapes return.

EAT: Lottie & Zula’s, 120-A NE Russell St., 503-333-6923, lottieandzulas.com. 8 am-4 pm Tuesday-Saturday. Breakfast all day, lunch 10:30 am to close. Takeout and delivery only.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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FOOD & DRINK ELIZA ROTHSTEIN

BREAD REVIEW

TOP 5

HOT PLATES Where to order takeout this week.

Aybendito

Order at aybenditopdx.com.

Ataula co-owner Cristina Baez’s tiendita is designed with the pandemic in mind, operating on a family-friendly take-and-make model. The online marketplace is stocked with the street food Baez grew up with in Puerto Rico: sofrito canéles to replace your stale bullion, chimichurri, limited-availability pernil, and pollo guisado, flan, and the staple pastelillo.

República

721 NW 9th Ave., 951-206-8237, @republicapdx. 11 am-3 pm and 4-8 pm daily.

República is a casual yet ambitious place built around guisados—the stewed fillings that go in tortas and tortillas—and corn masa. It also has a not-so-secret weapon in tortilla maker Doña Chapis, who does her own quesadilla pop-ups several days a week.

WESLEY LAPOINTE

Kemuri Hot Dogs

kemuri.us Afuri, the celebrated Japanese ramen chain, has started a delivery-only “ghost kitchen” focused on hot dogs. These aren’t typical ballpark franks, though. At Kemuri, the dogs are cooked over charcoal and include fixings such as kimchi, spicy ground pork, tonkatsu sauce and kizami nori, or shredded seaweed.

Ripe Cooperative

Challah at Your Boy Have no fear, Challahman is here—to bring kosher bread straight to your doorstep.

BY E L I Z A R OT H ST E I N

@saltynectar

Meyer’s challah is classic. Each loaf has plump braids and a crust with a brown sheen so uniform it could be the subject of a stock photo shoot. Meyer uses the standard ingredients: oil, flour, egg, yeast, sugar, salt. When you rip into the challah, you’ll see an inner crumb whiter than some eggier versions and the sought-after shards of pulled dough.

Along with his addition of vanilla, however, Meyer’s challah has what most commercially produced challah in Portland do not: a rabbi who oversees the baking and ensures that each loaf is kosher.

“It’s important to me that I have a kosher product,” Meyer says. “Not everyone wants or needs challah to be kosher, but a lot of people do.”

But not even Challahman has proven immune to the pandemic. The kosher facility where Meyer’s loaves rise cut its hours, forcing Meyer to scale back production and pull his challah from grocery store shelves. Once again, Portlanders who value quality kosher glutenous goods spoke up. And so, in spring 2020, Meyer returned to his roots, delivering loaves to schools, synagogues and homes.

Now, you can have the Challahman himself deliver challah to your doorstep every week.

Ordering loaves online on Tuesday guarantees both Friday delivery and the donation of a loaf of challah to the Holocaust survivors program of the Jewish Family & Child Service.

Meyer doesn’t know how the Challahman will morph again postpandemic. He does, however, have a dream. He hopes to one day trade in his black minivan for a decked-out delivery truck—decals of his logo on the side, blasting klezmer music through the streets of Portland, and tossing loaves to passersby.

“People are spread out all over the place,” he says. “I like looking for creative ways to keep community cohesive in difficult times.”

Fills Donuts

1237 SW Washington St., 503-477-5994.

8 am-2 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

If you thought Portland didn’t need another doughnut maker, this one introduces a new style to the culinary scene: the Berliner, traditional German pastries with no center hole and a filling of fruit, chocolate or custard.

TOP 5

BUZZ LIST

Where to drink this week, one way or another.

Rally Pizza

Wayfinder Beer

8070 E Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver, Wash., 360-524-9000, rallypizza.com. 3-8 pm Monday-Thursday, noon-8 pm Friday-Sunday for curbside pickup or delivery by DoorDash.

Want to experience the thrill of buying a premade cocktail to go? You’ll have to cross the Columbia into Washington, where takeout mixed drinks have been legal since May. That means visiting Vancouver’s finest pizzeria, grabbing a fennel sausage pie, a side Caesar and a Little Italy—a whiskey drink in a sealed Mason jar that’s citrusy, sweet and bitter all at once.

304 SE 2nd Ave., 503-718-2337, wayfinder.beer. 3-9 pm daily.

If ever there were a beer that could transport you to the brauhauses of Munich, it would be Wayfinder Hell, a crisp and snappy lager with a gasp of citrus that, in normal times, comes in a fat mug. Sadly, these aren’t normal times, but you can still get it in a can, along with the brewery’s other standout German-style beers.

Delivery is also available WednesdaySunday.

Enoteca Nostrana Bottle Shop

1401 SE Morrison St. 503-236-7006, enotecanostrana.com.

One of the most beloved wine bars in Portland has assembled a six-pack of holiday wines. And at barely over $20 a bottle, it’s a pretty good deal for a highend, highly curated shop that’s open for pickup and delivery.

Wyrd Leather & Mead

4515 SE 41st Ave., 503-305-6025, wyrdleatherandmead.com.

At Wyrd Leather & Mead, you can wear your horn and drink from it too—it is both a meadery and artisan marketplace, with décor that blends Norse history and medieval fantasy, and Middle-earth with modern-day environmental pleas. Pick your own flight of four regionally brewed meads, or “cast the runes” and have the bartenders choose for you.

Shine Distillery and Grill

4232 N Williams Ave., 503-825-1010, shinedistillerygrill.com.

Big family gatherings might be canceled, but this holiday season doesn’t have to be somber. Every night starting at 4:30, you can watch drag performances at Shine Distillery’s “drag-thru” while you wait for cocktail kits to go and bottles of housemade booze.

WESLEY LAPOINTE

Bagel fiends across Portland suffered a big blow in 2011. Kettleman Bagel Company, a beloved brand that had been boiling bagels since 2006, was bought by Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, the parent company to chains Einstein Bros. and Noah’s New York Bagels.

The collective despair was aired on Reddit feeds and Facebook polls. But there was one group of middle schoolers that was particularly put out. For years, the Portland Jewish Academy had been receiving kosher challah from Kettleman. One of the only kosher bakeries in town, its dissolution left a void.

Fortunately for the PJA Dragons, their newfound need coincided with the growing hobby of a welcomed superhero.

Enter the Challahman.

In spring 2012, the aspiring baker then known as Rich Meyer went on a trip to Israel and was struck by the sight of stall-high piles of challah spilling into the streets of the Shuk Mahane Yehuda, one of Jerusalem’s largest markets. Inspired by the towers of braided dough, he started baking more challah when he returned home to Portland. It was around this time he learned that PJA was still looking for a kosher challah purveyor. So he rented out a kitchen at a local synagogue and increased production.

“I had a few people who helped me go from baking two loaves at a time to baking many loaves at a time,” Meyer says, “and that’s when the Challahman was born.”

Meyer’s challah was a hit at the school, and he started receiving and filling more special requests for home-delivered bread. Two years in, he began working with a local bakery to produce loaves that stocked the shelves of Fred Meyer, Green Zebra, Albertsons, and others He even became the trusted supplier for many local brunch joints, though he won’t divulge exactly where.

SECRET IDENTITY: Rich Meyer, aka the Challahman.

5425 NE 30th Ave., 503-841-6968, ripecooperative.com. 10 am-6 pm Thursday-Sunday.

Naomi Pomeroy wasn’t necessarily ready to say goodbye to Beast when it closed indefinitely in March due to COVID19. But she wasn’t going to shed a tear over it, either. Pomeroy’s new venture in the 600-square-foot space is Ripe Cooperative, a gourmet community market with fresh pastas, bread, wine and box meals to go that will continue her mission of taking the mystery out of cooking.

ORDER: See challahman.com.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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MOVIES

GET YO UR REPS I N

Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com KEITH BORMUTH

SCREENER

SLOW RIDE: Author Melissa Maerz takes readers back to the last day of school in 1976.

Class Reunion

BY C H A N C E SO L E M - P F E I FER

@chance_s_p

Melissa Maerz didn’t set out to pen a nostalgic book about the 1993 film Dazed and Confused any more than director Richard Linklater tried to warmly memorialize 1976 in his last-day-of-school classic.

But the Portland author of Alright, Alright, Alright found that such decisions are mostly up to the beholders, or in Maerz’s case, her interviewees.

Chronicling the perspectives of Linklater, Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck and about 140 others, the oral history sometimes reads like reminiscences of high school—never mind that the movie was fictional—replete with druggy shenanigans, summer flings and unresolved conflicts from the Dazed set. Still, other chapters perform a different kind of snapshotting: parsing early ’90s studio politics in an era when regional iconoclasts like Linklater still had defined pathways to directorial stardom.

Maerz—a Portland native who co-founded Vulture and worked as a producer at Vice News Tonight—spoke with WW about her sources’ sometimes contradictory memories, the inscrutability of Parker Posey, and reckoning with the Wooderson character’s creepiness in 2020.

WW: One of your book’s central themes is that Dazed was intended as an anti-nostalgia film, but it became one anyway. How did that happen?

Melissa Maerz: That’s actually what made me want to write the book. You can see it in the movie, right? Cynthia’s character literally says, “The ’70s obviously suck.”

Now, I know so many people who’ve watched Dazed a billion times because of all those levels of nostalgia…because they’re nostalgic for high school…because they’re nostalgic for the ’70s…and now because they’re nostalgic for the ’90s and watching it back then.

You tracked down several Huntsville, Texas, residents who partially inspired Linklater’s characters.

Did any of their real memories surprise you?

That was probably my favorite part to report. The most 30

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

In your introduction, Ethan Hawke calls Linklater a “mysterious entity.” Even after all your interviews, do you still find him a little mysterious?

Definitely. He seems like a pretty transparent person in terms of how honest his answers are, but he has a really good bullshit detector. I think anytime someone is trying to paint him as a certain type of character, he has this knee-jerk reaction against it. You see that in his characters too. In an ’80s high school movie, you’d see, “Oh that’s the nerd character, that’s the jock.” Dazed was the first time I remember seeing “Oh, the nerds are also the smart political kids, and the jocks are also the stoners.” Linklater himself is very against anyone painting him as a saint or this Zen guy.

Do you have a favorite exchange between your oral history sources?

I just love any moment where there are like 5 million people disagreeing. That’s part of nostalgia too. Someone’s like, “Oh, the biggest pot smoker was Rory [Cochrane].”

And Rory’s like, “No way, I was just acting. The biggest pot smoker was Shawn [Andrews]!” Or Ben Affleck saying he never intentionally hurt anybody in doing the paddling scenes, when some of the kids remember getting hurt. It’s just interesting to see how people’s perspectives end up being totally different accounts of the truth.

Was there anyone whose tone doesn’t fully come through in their quotes?

Parker Posey. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or funny or cutting. But I think that’s really true to how some other people on set experienced her too.

Some people thought she was really sweet and funny, and other people felt she was kind of mean.

Were the actors eager to talk about how the film’s politics had aged, or did you have to make that a priority?

The one thing everyone is kind of “ugh” about is McConaughey’s famous line [about high school girls], “I get older, they stay the same age.” I asked everybody if they thought today that line would be different. When I saw this movie in high school, there were a lot of scenes that pissed me off that people were laughing at. And now that I’m older, I think, “That’s not supposed to be funny.” One of the things that’s allowed this movie to age is that Linklater doesn’t moralize. He just let the movie be as teenage life really was, and let people judge for themselves how to interpret it.

READ: Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz, Harper, 464 pages, $26.99.

While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. Winter is coming in hot (cold?), so here are five frosty flicks that revel in the crisp chill of fresh snow and the cozy warmth of the perfect cashmere scarf.

Little Women (2019) Greta Gerwig’s fresh retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s seminal novel follows the March sisters (Saoirse Ronan, Eliza Scanlen, Emma Watson and Florence Pugh) as they come of age in 19th century Massachusetts. At once a snow-frosted tearjerker, a comforting period drama, and a heartfelt ode to young women who dare to make art.

Amazon Prime, Google Play, Hulu, Sling TV, Starz, Vudu, YouTube.

Winter Light (1963) If you liked the Ethan Hawke’s excellent 2017 drama First Reformed, check out the movie it drew massive inspiration from: Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman’s 81-minute parable about a pastor suffering from health problems and an existential crisis spurred by his failure to help a suicidal fisherman (Max von Sydow). Criterion Channel, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube.

NETFLIX

Through nearly 150 interviews, a Portland author chronicles the history of ’90s cult classic Dazed and Confused for a new book.

surprising thing was how specific to their high school experience this movie is. When I watched Dazed, the one thing I felt was kind of over the top was the hazing. I thought, “There’s no way there’s a high school where the teachers are allowing incoming seniors to hit the incoming freshmen with wooden paddles.” But it literally happened at Linklater’s school! Those people still have really traumatic memories of going through hazing.

Private Life (2018) When a middle-aged New York couple (Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti) struggle with fertility issues, they ask their 25-year-old niece (Kayli Carter) to donate her eggs. Because she majored in journalism and cinema studies, she’s strapped for cash and happily agrees. Tamara Jenkins wrote and directed this charming, down-to-earth dramedy. Netflix.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Stanley Kubrick’s final film is also one of his very best: a twisted erotic mystery about a doctor (Tom Cruise) whose life comes crashing down when his wife (Nicole Kidman) admits to her dissatisfaction with him. Her blunt confession sends him spiraling down Christmas-lit New York streets, where he stumbles into a jazz club, a costume shop and, oh yeah, a secret orgy society. Amazon Prime, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube.

The Hateful Eight (2015) In this stormy Western mystery from Quentin Tarantino, a group of eight ruthless strangers, all with something to hide, become trapped in an isolated lodge by an unrelenting blizzard. Netflix also released an extended version last year, splitting the 210-minute epic into four episodes. Amazon Prime, iTunes, Netflix, Vudu, YouTube.

MOVIES VA R I E T Y

TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

Mank In his first movie in six years, filmmaker David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network) hasn’t lost his ability to beguile, fascinate and vex. Working from a screenplay by his late father, Jack Fincher, the director has concocted a superb cinematic portrait of Herman “Mank” Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), co-writer of Citizen Kane. In 1940, a bloated Mank drunkenly dictates the script to his formidable transcriber, Rita Alexander (Lily Collins).

He’s preparing the project for Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to direct, but flashbacks insinuate that Citizen Kane is powered by a personal grudge Mank holds against William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). Tormented by his tacit participation in a Hearstbacked smear campaign against the writer and liberal California gubernatorial candidate Upton Sinclair (Bill Nye), Mank models the megalomaniacal Charles Foster Kane on Hearst. Was Citizen Kane’s origin that simple? Hardly, but you don’t have to buy the theory to dig the movie. Beneath the seductive sheen of Erik Messerschmidt’s black-and-white cinematography lies Fincher’s conviction that Hollywood—like the melting ice sculpture of an elephant at a party Mank attends—should be liquefied for its sins.

Mank may not be cheery, but no one goes to Fincher for good vibes. Gleeful pessimism is his drug of choice, and for us, it can be an improbable and exhilarating high. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Netflix.

MANK

OUR KEY

: T H I S M O V I E I S E XC E L L E N T, O N E O F T H E B E S T O F T H E Y E A R. : T H I S M O V I E I S G O O D. W E R E C O M M E N D YO U WATC H I T. : T H I S M O V I E I S E N T E R TA I N I N G B U T F L AW E D. : T H I S M O V I E I S A P I E C E O F S H I T.

ALSO PLAYING Collective When Bucharest nightclub Colectiv burned in 2015, 27 people died—and that was just the beginning. In the following weeks, 37 injured survivors of the fire perished, a loss that led to the exposure of a sweeping conspiracy that had corrupted the Romanian health care system. That scandal is the subject of Collective, a mesmerizing and enraging documentary directed by Alexander Nanau.

The film focuses on Catalin Tolontan, a journalist at a sports newspaper who reported on the use of heavily diluted disinfectants in Romanian hospitals, and former Minister of Health Vlad Voiculescu, whom we watch soberly struggle to reform the institution he serves from within. Devoid of didactic narration and expert interviews, Collective trusts that images of horrendous injustices (like a neglected patient’s maggot-covered face) will speak for themselves. The greed, lies and apathy revealed are almost too much to bear, but there’s no turning away from a film this morally urgent, thoroughly researched and beautifully paced. When Tolontan declares, “All I’m trying is to give people more knowledge about the powers that shape our lives,” it’s as if he’s speaking for the filmmakers. Collective is the embodiment of his words—a masterpiece that is both cinematic and journalistic. NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. On Demand.

Higher Love To say that Hasan Oswald’s debut documentary is a snapshot of America’s opioid crisis implies something too quick. There’s nothing snappy about spending 10 minutes cramped in a room of New Jerseyans endlessly shooting

up. The camerawork is graphic and unsteady, and you can feel the lack of control permeating every inch of squalor. Despite this grotesque intimacy, Higher Love finds its more interesting subject idling outside the trap house. We first meet Daryl, a 47-year-old printing press owner and father of eight, trolling dilapidated industrial parks in search of his pregnant girlfriend, Nani. If she’s depicted as one of the opioid crisis’s ceaseless tragedies (her mother died of an overdose), Daryl is one of its memorable supporting characters. You couldn’t script his boundless patience with Nani or his explosions of contempt at how deep her addiction runs. Secondary stories of other Camden residents battling the needle aren’t as layered, though they do reveal untold absurdities of the recovery system, like needing to score one final time in order to receive a suitably high dose of Suboxone for detox. In that light, Higher Love reveals utter extremity becoming dismally banal.

For Daryl, the burning question becomes, when is giving up the only rational response? NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. On Demand.

Light Years Vermont, 1999: A hot pink lacrosse cap, a fistful of psilocybin mushrooms—things are obscure in Light Years before the actual obscurity even kicks in. The third indie dramedy from writer-director Colin Thompson (Loser’s Crown, It’s Us) employs mushrooms as an informal time machine, transporting mid-30s Kevin back to the first night he ever partook, at 16. The result is a bit like if Charlie Kaufman directed (and interrogated) a Mike White comedy for less than $100,000. Thompson himself quite charmingly plays most characters on Kevin’s trip—man,

woman, young, old—but it’s Russell Posner as Kevin’s loopy, almost telepathically synced best friend, Briggs, that cements the film’s pathos and justifies the flashback in the first place. We’re swept into Kevin and Briggs’ teenage idiolect, borderline nonsense about Burlington rock bands and NBA draft busts to everyone else. But the love wrapped up in their shared language is enough to sustain and choke Kevin for the rest of his life. Even if the superimposed animation of the trip feels more obligatory than valuable and Thompson’s acting isn’t as strong in wholly dramatic scenes, the theme hoists this indie above its weight class. Selective memory is its own kind of drug, and you can always travel back one way or another. TV-14. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. On Demand.

Wander Darkly Adrienne and Matteo (Sienna Miller and Diego Luna) are not-sohappy new parents. They fight at home, at parties, in the car…until a head-on traffic collision cuts their final argument short. This propels Adrienne into an out-of-body experience, trapping her in a limbo where she’s forced to silently and invisibly observe the paramedics fail to revive her, and her subsequent funeral. And then she wakes up. She’s not dead, but she’s convinced she is, triggering an existential crisis that causes her to reflect on the truth behind her relationship with Matteo. This is the point where the film becomes visionary, evoking dreamy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-esque reveries across memory in order to pinpoint where their love began to fade. In these retrospective journeys through the most salient events of their relationship, Adrienne and her imagined version of Matteo communicate frankly about their ups and downs—something they struggled to do in the real world.

Reminiscent of a less esoteric She Dies Tomorrow (another three-star 2020 release), this confident direc-

torial debut from Tara Miele is a psychological probe into the ways we reckon with trauma, effectively blurring the malleable lines between reality and memory. R. MIA VICINO. On Demand.

Sound of Metal If a noisecore drummer loses his hearing, should anyone care?

Sound of Metal presents a remarkably empathetic portrait of that rare beast—the working hardcore percussionist committed to sobriety and a girlfriend/bandmate—yet shows just a taste of the goodish life Ruben (Riz Ahmed) and Lou (Olivia Cooke) share while touring in a cozy Airstream before his sudden loss of hearing tears their plans asunder. While the plotline might seem eerily similar to the 2004 indie flick It’s All Gone Pete Tong, this story isn’t about punishing hubris. Ruben, unlike Pete Tong’s superstar DJ, has already dealt with his substance-abuse issues at the film’s start, and he tries his damnedest to embrace the silence suggested by deaf guru Joe (Paul Raci) at a cultish American Sign Language camp. Unable to abandon his eterna-gigging life plans, our hero neither hears nor listens to the increasingly gloomy diagnoses en route to affording the semblance of hearing promised by cochlear implants, which prove a maddeningly false tease.

This directorial debut from The Place Beyond the Pines screenwriter Darius Marder exploits next-gen soundcraft and Ahmed’s electric vapidity to its best advantage while ignoring moralistic conventions, but there’s a troubling condescension pegged to the protagonist’s chosen genre and instrument. Would a talented singer-songwriter be so blithely expected to accept medical practicalities rather than further damaging health in pursuit of doomed passions?

Would Beethoven? At the end of the day, this is an expertly crafted labor of love championing the abandonment of dreams. What’s the sound of one hand clapping? R. JAY HORTON. Amazon Prime.

Zappa Possessed of an abstruse, willfully difficult muse that bled impossible time signatures and dark humor into even the most approachable sections of his daunting discography, Frank Zappa effectively evaded commercial success until late-life novelty single “Valley Girl” inexplicably cracked the charts. But his fame as an iconoclastic counterpop-cultural figure somehow still burns bright a quarter-century after his 1993 death from prostate cancer at the age of 52. How, exactly, did an avant-rock misanthrope best resembling a cross between social activist Abbie Hoffman and Beaker ever end up becoming one of The Muppet Show writers’ dream guests anyway?

Zappa, the long-awaited doc that began streaming Nov. 27, doesn’t much care and may be offended by the question. While nearly all authorized rockumentaries shelve criticism of the man for access to the music, Zappa leans into the infernal bargain with generic platitudes and overtold anecdotes scattered throughout 120-plus minutes of performances, interviews and home movies—family keepsakes plus the artist’s own experimentalist collages—stitched together from the evidently overflowing estate vaults. It’s all sure to be a treat for fans and seems fitting tribute to a largely unknowable polymath whose creative oeuvre, which includes a stint writing greeting card copy as a teenager and a final turn as a symphonic composer, survives largely through sarcastic quips and critical reputation. Still, so much of his life story—growing up near a chemical weapons plant, arrested for recording a fake sex (audio) tape, signed by a distracted label rep hoping for a white blues band—feels sufficiently compelling if only the nonstop miasma of footage would get out of its own way. NR. JAY HORTON. On Demand.

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31

STREET

FALL ON ME Scenes from the waning days of autumn in Portland.

Photos by Justin Katigbak On Instagram: @justin.katigbak

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

STARTERS

THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS T H AT H AP P E NE D IN PORTLAND CULTURE THIS W E E K, GRAP H E D.

RE AD MORE AB OU T T H E S E STORI E S AT WW EEK .COM .

RIDICULOUS LIZ ALLAN

How to Give!Guide Step 2

Step 1

Damian Lillard—aka Laheem Lillard—is a playable character in a new WWE video game.

AWESOME

Give them a few bucks.

What cause do you care about?

Step 4 Donate and get involved!

DONATE TO WIN BIG

OPB

Controversial coffee maker Ristretto Roasters goes out of business.

AWFUL

Iconic Old Portland oddity Rimsky-Korsakoffee House starts a crowdfunding campaign to stay open.

Canard has lasagna now!

Step 3

BI G G I VE DAY

ANOTHER BELIEVER/ WIKI COMMONS

SAM GEHRKE

Suburban dining staple Gustav’s temporarily closes all its restaurants—including its beer bar spinoff, Bargarten.

Find a Portland nonprofit that makes a difference for that cause.

The next Big Give Day is December 15. Give $10 or more on December 15 and you could win a Trek Marlin 5 or Trek FX 1 Disc from The Bike Gallery!

Presented by B E X WA LT O N / F L I C K R

OPB Music ceases streaming after 13 years.

B R U C E E LY / T R A I L B L A Z E R S

COURTESY OF HILOS

The Blazers shut down their practice facility following three positive COVID tests within the organization.

K E L LO G G B OW L FAC E B O O K

Portland zero-waste footwear company Hilos wins PitchfestNW.

SERIOUS

Kellogg Bowl, one of the Portland area’s oldest bowling alleys, closes permanently.

giveguide.org Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

33

GET...OUTSIDE?

WHAT TO DO—AND WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING—AS PORTLAND REOPENS.

Your Haunt on Your Sleeve Portland bars and restaurants are selling everything from T-shirts and hats to face masks and thongs to bring in extra revenue during the pandemic.

BY JAS O N CO H E N

@cohenesque

Just as most musicians have ceased to make a living in the age of streaming, many bars and restaurants can’t survive on takeout and delivery alone.

And just like how your favorite bands have always sold merchandise to put some extra money in their pockets, so it goes for Portland’s food and drink establishments. With winter coming, and their fortunes at the mercy of the ever-changing rules governing COVID-19, the hat or T-shirt that was once a fun thing to have hanging behind the bar is now both a modest source of revenue and a way for regulars to show their allegiances in a difficult time.

At the start of the pandemic, Mississippi Studios—which remains shuttered as a music venue, but whose adjacent burger-and-beer joint, Bar Bar, still has takeout food and outdoor

service—did a run of what was supposed to be 100 T-shirts. It wound up filling 500 orders.

“It was a great design, but I can’t help thinking a lot of it was also folks just wanting to see us come back strong,” says marketing director (and former Willamette Week music editor) Casey Jarman, who also designed the bar’s latest “Snakes” T-shirt.

Earlier this year, more than a dozen bars and restaurants were beneficiaries of the Creative Support Club, a limited-edition collaboration between local branding agency Nemo Design and screen printer Pacific North Press to feature local bars and restaurants.

“The best part of the whole effort was seeing the outpouring of love from the community to support their faves,” says Matthew Mirpourian of Pacific North, which continues to do printing and distribution for a variety of local businesses. “There

were just so many people jumping to help out and celebrate their haunts. It really helped us manage emotionally too.”

One of those businesses was Tulip Shop Tavern on North Killingsworth Street, which got pocket tees printed with the Humboldt neighborhood bar’s flowery logo.

With Tulip Shop’s excellent cheeseburger selling for just $8, and cocktails unavailable to go, it certainly helps when someone wants to add a $30 hat or $25 T-shirt to their takeout check. But co-owner Tyler Treadwell—who also does the bar’s designs—says it’s also nice to just have people out there flying the bar’s flag.

“People say, ‘Oh, man, I was out in another neighborhood and I saw a Tulip Shop shirt, and then we had this cool conversation about Tulip Shop,’” he says. “If I hear that once a week, it makes so much of a difference.”

Here are 14 favorite pieces of local schwag available for sale right now.

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Kim Jo

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$25

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Landmark Saloon Trucker hat, $25; koozie, $5; band T-shirts, $25

rn

ts, $30 $25; snapback ha

person at sales; available in Buy at: No online rs to go de or th St. or with 825 N Killingswor .

6-8483 by calling 503-20

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

orror Picture

Buy at: dona

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te.cstpdx.com

Buy at: landmarksaloon.com/merch.html Pacific North is also making Landmark-branded T-shirts—a small “LS” on one sleeve—from such artists as Mike Coykendall, TK & The Holy Know-Nothings, and Pete Krebs, with all proceeds going to the bar.

Tulip Shop Tave Pocket tees,

Clinton Str eet Theate

The Rocky H

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Enamel

ask, $15

pi Stud

pins, $8

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GET...OUTSIDE?

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Gasoline jacket, $30 Buy at: marysclub.com/merchandise.php Portland’s oldest strip club is also old school when it comes to virtual commerce: Orders go to an AOL email address, with payment via money order, but ask about a Venmo option.

15

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golfing Buy at: y disc, $1 ourneigh 5 b o rhoodrg Big ’s Ch .com/yn icken, R rg-merc evere handise Market m nd’s BBQ and L aur erch also available elhurst .

Lardo “Black Flag” T-shirt, $18 Buy at: lardo.myshopify.com Also available in “Misfits.”

Monqui Presents Shower curtain, $70 Buy at: monquipresents.myshopify.com The black-and-white collage of old show posters is also available as an apron, phone case, face mask or enamel mug.

Lucky Devil

Lounge

Lucky Devil cl

assic thong, $9

s ess.com/dante int Buy at: cafepr il and Devils Po ev D y ck Lu nd fi so araoke al pp ll ri u’ St Yo ts and ing booty shor merch, includ . om vilspointpdx.c T-shirts, at de

en Trap Kitch

en Trap Kitch icks st p o ch X PD 0 3 $ T-shirt, Buy at: se.

-merchandi trap-kitchen ns/pdf io ct le ol /c om myshopify.c

Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

35

PERFORMANCE

Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com P R O F I L E T H E AT R E

BOOKS

Written by: Scout Brobst Contact: sbrobst@wweek.com

FIVE GREAT WINTRY READS

The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey Eowyn Ivey’s beloved debut novel, The Snow Child, sets magical realism in the harshness of winter. Born out of a Russian fairy tale, a drifting couple is brought together by a strange child who appears the day after a snow replica is built in a moment of joy. Neither the couple nor the reader knows if the child is real or imagined, only that she bears the weight of the mythology projected onto her.

Weather, Jenny Offill

Chaos in the French Court

Even if Jenny Offill’s Weather reads like dry dread—it is, after all, about an impending climate apocalypse—it is only 200 pages, so the foreboding lasts for only so long. Her narrator, Lizzie, is wry and sardonic, breaking down climate anxiety to its most basic parts. For the subject matter, the book is conversational and charming, declining to virtue signal and instead easing into its grim reality feet first.

Mischief, misogyny and racism collide in Profile Theatre’s Las Meninas.

A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold

THE CROWN: The cast of Las Meninas treats the play not as a period piece but as a multifaceted spoof of a period piece.

BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E L L FE RGUS O N

A little person, a nun and a princess are among the stars of Diego Velázquez’s 1656 painting Las Meninas, which also features a likeness of the artist himself. It’s a work of art that has been a subject of scholarly obsession for so long that in 2014, art historian Jonathan Brown cracked a joke about “Las Meninas Fatigue Syndrome.”

Anyone suffering from that particular disorder should try Profile Theatre’s audio play Las Meninas. Written

by Lynn Nottage and originally published in 2001, the script borrows its title and some pieces of its plot from Velázquez’s painting, but it is anything but fatiguing. It is an angry, romantic, playful and political dramedy that takes aim at racism and misogyny with a smile that suggests laughter is the best revenge on the ruling class.

Las Meninas stars Crystal Ann Muñoz as MarieTherese, queen of France and wife of King Louis XIV (Chris Murray). Marie-Therese, a Spaniard, is something of a pariah among 17th century French elites (“It’s no secret—the queen is the ugliest woman in all of this court,” a character claims), and even Louis barely tolerates her.

He speaks her name with a venomousness most human beings reserve for skunks and rattlesnakes.

In the midst of her misery, Marie-Therese discovers an unlikely ally in Nabo Sensugali (Rance Nix), a little person from the African kingdom of Dahomey who has been enslaved and forced to serve as her fool. Marie-Therese initially treats Nabo with cruel condescension, but their relationship evolves into a romance built on their shared status as outsiders. By the time Marie-Therese says, “Sometimes I fear that we are in love,” you know they already are.

While there’s a hazy precedent for this story—it has been speculated that the real Marie-Therese gave birth to a biracial daughter who was raised in a convent—Las Meninas is no dry slab of historical fiction. Even after Marie-Therese and Nabo fall in love, they trade crude and cringe-worthy insults (“Fatty!” “Little man!” “Ugly cow!”).

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

In fact, the entire play pulses with an anarchic energy that repeatedly and thrillingly upends expectations.

Director Dawn Monique Williams and her cast and crew stay on Nottage’s prankish wavelength by treating Las Meninas not as a period piece, but as a multifaceted spoof of a period piece. The dainty opening notes of Matt Wiens’ score play as a knowingly clichéd tribute to Baroque-era music, and the gleefully anachronistic performances seem engineered to rib audiences expecting realism—when Louis declares, “Tomorrow I have a full day of pageantry and whatnot,” he sounds like the most American sovereign ever to strut through Versailles.

Las Meninas is mischievous enough that by the end of Act 1, listeners may wonder if the play is headed for a hopeful ending—the Nottage equivalent of Hitler being assassinated in Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist World War II film Inglourious Basterds. Nottage ultimately chooses a more painful and believable route, and the play is not necessarily better for it. There’s something irresistible about the idea of Marie-Therese and Nabo defying history by fleeing France together and leaving the vile Louis and his mistress, La Valliere (Claire Rigsby), to fume in their wake.

Yet in a year of good, bad and maddeningly mediocre audio plays, Las Meninas stands out. While many theater artists have responded to the pandemic with relentlessly sober and serious tales, Profile has created a production that dares to entertain and enlighten in equal measure.

It’s a miracle that one play can include both an uproarious gag about a wig and a wrenching scene where MarieTherese tells Nabo, “You were shipped in a box and I [in] a carriage.” That line isn’t meant to suggest that their struggles are equal—Nabo has endured suffering that his queen can’t comprehend. It’s there to remind us of the beauty of two outcasts finding solace with one another, even if their bliss will be trampled beneath the arc of history.

LISTEN: Las Meninas streams exclusively for members of Profile Theatre at profiletheatre.org/las-meninas through Tuesday, Jan. 5.

People tend to read A Sand County Almanac around Earth Day, and for good reason. Aldo Leopold is a conservationist in all the senses that matter, calling for personal responsibility to the natural world with prose that stands in for an ecological valentine. The chapters move seasonally, beginning with the new year thaw that comes after midwinter blizzards: “January observation can be almost as simple and peaceful as snow, and almost as continuous as cold,” he writes.

“There is time not only to see who has done what, but to speculate why.”

Winter, Ali Smith The winter installment of Ali Smith’s quartet of seasonal novels begins with the holidays, but warns that holiday fuzz is absent. As with all of Smith’s writing, the things that are bleak are always more interesting than the things that are shiny: At Christmastime, four people travel to a baronial mansion in Cornwall, split along lines of politics, memory and familial spite. “That’s what winter is,” Smith writes. “An exercise in remembering how to still yourself then how to come pliantly back to life again.”

Daisy Johnson, Sisters Sororal ties are at the fore of Daisy Johnson’s debut novel, a gothic pressure cooker that begins in exile. Two sisters, September and July, are brought to a cottage at the edge of the North York Moors, left in isolation on the barren coast.

The great reveal of what would place the pair in such a situation comes to the patient reader who is willing to muscle through sparse dialogue and atmospheric discomfort.

POTLANDER

Presents for Potheads A 2020 stoner gift guide.

BY BRIA N N A W H E E L E R

Having the means to shower your loved ones with holiday gifts is celebratory every year. But there’s just a little more stank on the proceedings this time around.

That is to say, most of us have been isolating dutifully, exploring new hobbies and discovering new passions. Maybe your pothead auntie who usually gets a commemorative holiday plate has realized a newfound interest in gardening since working from home. Perhaps your closest confidant got particularly carried away with the Marie Kondo era of 2020 and is newly obsessed with ultra-efficient weed storage. It’s also possible that your partner stress-smoked their throat raw after coaching your kids through distance learning, thus developing a new appreciation for low-temp cannabis activation.

Frankly, 2020 spun everyone in a new direction, and ’tis the season to celebrate some fresh orientations.

Here are a few cannabis-adjacent gift suggestions to get you started.

For the Pothead Homesteaders: Feminist Weed Farmer For your workaholic stoner homies who rejoiced at the chance to stay at home and revel in domesticity for once, this is the text to help them level up their cannagardening skills. This easy-to-use guide to cultivating and processing homegrown weed is an awesomely accessible alternative to lengthy gardening guides. Author Madrone Stewart is an established Humboldt farmer who deftly guides readers through the process of growing six backyard plants, from selecting seeds to harvesting and processing. Stewart covers everything from mindful pest management to thriving in a male-dominated industry to creating your own cannabis lube. It is a must-have addition to any dedicated cannabis gardener’s library.

Get it from: Microcosm Publishing, 2752 N Williams Ave., 503-799-2698, microcosmpublishing.com.

For the Newly Minted Minimalist: Serra x Hemson Chill Box A sad irony occurred when Marie Kondo swept into our lives and inspired us to rethink our interiors and rid ourselves of several piles of donatable tchotchkes, only to have a pandemic promptly close thrift store sales floors nationwide. Maximalist thrifters from coast to coast were both plucked and salted. On the other hand, stoners who dedicated themselves to the KonMari method of artful organization may appreciate this one additional storage tchotchke, the Serra x Hemson Chill Box collab.

This is a reasonably straightforward stash box, except it features a magnetic lid that doubles as a rolling tray and an angular, removable trough made for joint-rolling support. The box’s profile is a modern minimalist combo of pale beechwood and either porcelain blush or concrete gray. The whole affair is a very contemporary, sophisticated addition to the end tables or color-coded bookcases of your trendier stoner pals.

Get it from: Serra, 2519 SE Belmont St., 971-544-7055, shopserra.com.

For the Parents Barely Keeping It Together: Oracle Wellness Healer’s Duo

For the Freethinking Boomer: Make & Mary Cannabis Inhaler

Eight-hour workdays are rough enough. Doubling down

For the elder, erstwhile pothead at your holiday table,

to also keep your kids engaged in several hours of Zoom calls is a recipe for exhaustion, malaise and body aches.

For the parental homies hanging by a thread, Portland cannabis chef Megon Dee’s Oracle Wellness line of remedies will be a welcome addition to the ol’ medicine cabinet. The Healer’s Duo pairs two of the brand’s most highly rated products for chronic pain—the flagship CBD salve and a pocket-sized CBD oil spray—in one stocking stuffer-sized package perfect for seasonal gifting.

this sleek, lipstick-sized inhaler may be the perfect addition to their retirement desktop. This device is the brainchild of Yvonne Perez Emerson, founder of Make & Mary, and comprises pink Himalayan sea salt soaked in cannabis, cedarwood, frankincense, lavender and orange essential oils packed in a rose gold cylinder that fits in the palm of your hand. Each whiff is a noseful of heady nostalgia and calculated calm. This product is a sophisticated aromatherapy option for those who find comfort in the grassy stank of a ripe cannabis stalk, but not the physical demands of actually being high on THC. So if the elders in your fam love talking about the good ol’ days but are reluctant to hit the blunt, this is a classy, sympathetic compromise.

Get it from: oraclewellnessco.com.

For the Old-School Connoisseur: Personalized Buddy One-Hitter Pipe Every varsity stoner has, at one point in their lives, owned or smoked weed from a one-hitter pipe resembling a cigarette. Buddy has reimagined that one-hitter as a personalized pipe that discreetly celebrates—rather than clumsily disguises—on-the-go weed smoking. But discretion and personal use aren’t the only perks of the one-hitter. The small bowl keeps the plant matter from creating an overly large cherry and burning away all the delicious cannabinoids.

Sara Hussain founded Buddy after growing frustrated with fragile glass pipes with gaping large bowls and easily clogged, novelty one-hitters. The Buddy is a twochamber pipe that cracks open for easy cleaning and is personalizable up to 30 characters. For the flower snob who keeps a pipe on hand at all times, this is a superconsiderate, super-stoney gift.

Get it from: coolbuddyparty.com

Get it from: Make & Mary, 2506 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-444-7608.

For Your Favorite Pothead: Pax 3 This pocket vaporizer can be used for both flower and concentrates, and relies on a low-temp heating system that retains far more cannabinoids and terpenes than combusting ever could. The result is a nuanced high that spotlights the full spectrum of effects from the user’s chosen strain. Pax also pairs with some of Oregon’s most popular farms to produce its proprietary Pax pods, a guarantee that only the best concentrates are compatible with this pen. Bonus: Oregrown’s flagship store features a Pax engraving station so you can make this exceptional gift even more of a cherished keepsake with a personalized holiday message.

Get it from: Oregrown, 111 NE 12th Ave., 503-477-6898, oregrown.com.

For the Family Influencer: High Society Eye of the Beholder Joint Holder High Society’s handmade metal adornments run the gamut from tiaras to mask chains, but most share the same chic purpose as totally unexpected joint holders.

Fabricated by Erin Colvin in her Portland studio (often with a baby strapped to her front), High Society pieces are created in small batches and include a lovely selection of weed leaf-festooned rings, studs and pendants. But the most captivating metalworks are the fantastically fashionable joint holders camouflaged as bun pins, statement necklaces, and chandelier earrings.

Your niece who just got TikTok famous for her french inhale is going to love this.

Get it from: highsocietycollection.com Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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ART N’ COMICS!

Be a Willamette Week featured artist! Any art style is welcome!

Let’s share your art! Contact us at art@wweek.com.

FEATURED ARTIST: Andrei Engelman

Andrei Engelman, who grew up in Kyrgyzstan and has lived in Bulgaria, Poland and the Netherlands, moved back to Portland during the summer. He never formally studied art, but has been painting for as long he can remember, using his life and experience to depict his understanding of the surrounding world. “When we are children, the world is bright and surprising. With time, it becomes routine. But sometimes something reminds us to look at the world anew and again it seems miraculous. I want to remind people that the world around us is amazing and that what kind of world we have depends on us. We are not only children of the earth, but also citizens of the universe.” About his series of colorful animal paintings he says, “Welcome to a fairy-tale world, strange but not scary, simple but not stupid, painted with joy and love.” Andrei’s work can be found on his website (andreiengelman.com), his Etsy shop, FunnyEngelman, and two online galleries, Singulart and Saatchi Art.

JACK KENT’S

Jack draws exactly what he sees n’ hears from the streets.

IG @sketchypeoplepdx kentcomics.com

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

JONESIN’

Week of December 17

©2020 Rob Brezsny

by Matt Jones

"Shell Game"--maybe that's why it's green.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Temporary gods are deities who come alive and become available for particular functions, and are not otherwise necessary or called upon. For instance, in ancient Greece, the god Myiagros showed up when humans made sacrifices to the goddess Athena. His task was to shoo away flies. I encourage you to invent or invoke such a spirit for the work you have ahead of you. And what's that work? 1. To translate your recent discoveries into practical plans. 2. To channel your new-found freedom into strategies that will ensure freedom will last. 3. To infuse the details of daily life with the big visions you've harvested recently. What will you name your temporary god?

I composed a prayer that's in alignment with your current astrological omens. If it feels right, say it daily for the next ten days. Here it is: "Dear Higher Self, Guardian Angel, and Future Me: Please show me how to find or create the key to the part of my own heart that's locked up. Reveal the secret to dissolving any inhibitions that interfere with my ability to feel all I need to feel. Make it possible for me to get brilliant insights into truths that will enable me to lift my intimate alliances to the next level."

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Author Virginia Woolf said that we don't wholly experience the unique feelings that arise in any particular moment. They take a while to completely settle in, unfold, and expand. From her perspective, then, we rarely "have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” With that as your starting point, Taurus, I invite you to take a journey through the last 11 months and thoroughly evolve all the emotions that weren't entirely ripe when they originally appeared. Now is an excellent time to deepen your experience of what has already happened; to fully bloom the seeds that have been planted.

GEMINI (May 21-June20)

ACROSS

55 ANSWER TO THE QUESTION

30 Prompt

1 "Breaking Bad" sidekick

61 Closest to the ground, stature-wise

32 "They went _ _ _-way"

6 Written test format 11 Some mainframe computers

62 Otherworldly

15 Follow, as an impulse 16 Pleas

64 Creator of Yertle the Turtle

18 QUESTION, PART 1

65 Laundry cycle

63 Mgr.'s helper

22 _ _ _ St. Soul (U.K. R&B/ soul group) 23 Controversial ride-sharing app

33 Actress Lauren of 2020's "The Wrong Missy" 34 Louis Armstrong's nickname 38 Unidentifiable cafeteria food 39 Did some karaoke

20 Cry bitterly 21 Blows away

31 Corvair investigator Ralph

DOWN

41 Repercussions

1 Movie score with a famous two-note motif

44 Irritate

42 "Ghost Town" actress Tea

2 Bounce back

45 Fastening bars shaped like letters

25 Fall back, as a tide

3 Aimless attempt

49 Louisiana, to Louis

26 ASPCA part

4 Imbiber

50 In _ _ _ of (replacing)

29 QUESTION, PART 2

5 Grind to a halt

51 Monica Geller's brother

34 "Forrest Gump" actor Gary

6 Milne's mopey donkey

52 Jack-o'-lantern look

35 "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for _ _ _" (1985 bestseller)

7 Flaky precipitation 8 Comedians Gilliam and Goldsmith, for two

53 College team from Salt Lake City

36 "Laugh-In" comedian Johnson 37 Like many indie films 38 "Buon giorno," in Brisbane 39 Go over the limit 40 Green Day, e.g.

41 "Sorry if _ _ _ you down"

9 Rainbow shape 10 "While that might be true ..."

11 "_ _ _ be here soon" 12 Took the bait 13 "I really don't care" 14 157.5 degrees from N

42 NBA team formerly from Minneapolis

17 It's a likely story

43 QUESTION, PART 3

23 Sleep aid brand

46 Charlemagne's realm, for short

24 Like a shopping mall on Black Friday, ordinarily

47 Device program

25 Online selling site

48 Cranberry sources

26 Wall, for one

49 Greek letter after zeta

27 Playful aquatic animals

50 "Battlefield Earth" author Hubbard

28 Dated term for college students

52 Director Van Sant

29 Site for reflection?

19 "You _ _ _ one"

54 "Auld Lang _ _ _" 55 "Don't text and drive" ad, for short 56 Acuity measures that don't really matter 57 Questionable, in "Among Us," slangily 58 Hustle, quaintly 59 High-jump hurdle 60 Peyton's sibling

last week’s answers

"Wonder is a bulky emotion," writes author Diane Ackerman. "When you let it fill your heart and mind, there isn't room for anxiety, distress, or anything else."

I'd love for you to use her observation as a prescription in 2021, Gemini. According to my understanding of the coming year's astrological portents, you will have more natural access to wonder and amazement and awe than you've had in a long time. And it would make me happy to see you rouse those primal emotions with vigor—so much so that you drive away at least some of the flabby emotions like anxiety, which are often more neurotic than real.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) I'll use the words of Cancerian painter Frida Kahlo to tell you the kind of intimate ally you deserve. If for some inexplicable reason you have not enjoyed a relationship like this before now, I urge you to make 2021 the year that you finally do. And if you HAVE indeed been lucky in this regard, I bet you'll be even luckier in 2021. Here's Frida: "You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled . . . who makes you feel safe . . . who wants to dance with you . . . who never gets tired of studying your expressions . . . who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom . . . who takes away the lies and brings you hope."

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) In 2019, singer Ariana Grande got Japanese characters tattooed on her palm. She believed them to be a translation of the English phrase "7 Rings," which was the title of a song she had released. But knowledgeable observers later informed her that the tattoo's real meaning was "small charcoal grill." She arranged to have alterations made, but the new version was worse: "Japanese barbecue grill finger." I offer you this story for two reasons, Leo. First, I applaud the creativity and innovative spirit that have been flowing through you. Second, I want to make sure that you keep them on the right track—that they continue to express what you want them to express. With proper planning and discernment, they will.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) While sleeping, most of us have over a thousand dreams every year. Many are hard to remember and not worth remembering. But a beloved few can be lifechangers. They have the potential to trigger epiphanies that transform our destinies for the better. In my astrological opinion, you are now in a phase when such dreams are more likely than usual. That's why I invite you to keep a recorder or a pen and notebook by your bed so as to capture them. For inspiration, read this testimony from Jasper Johns, whom some call America's "foremost living artist": "One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it." Painting flags ultimately became one of Johns' specialties.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Author Herman Hesse observed, “Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world.” I hope you will prove him wrong in 2021, Scorpio. According to my reading of astrological omens, the rhythms of life will be in alignment with yours if you do indeed make bold attempts to favor music over noise, joy over pleasure, soul over gold, creative work over business, passion over foolery.

Moreover, I think this will be your perfect formula for success—a strategy that will guarantee you'll feel at home in the world more than ever before.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) According to researcher Nick Watts and his documentary film *The Human Footprint*, the average person speaks more than 13 million words in a lifetime, or about 4,300 per day. But I suspect and hope that your output will increase in 2021. I think you'll have more to say than usual—more truths to articulate, more observations to express, more experiences to describe. So please raise your daily quota of selfexpression to account for your expanded capacity to share your intelligence with the world.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) "Our thinking should have a vigorous fragrance, like a wheat field on a summer's night," wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. I encourage you to adopt that joyful mandate as your own. It's a perfect time to throw out stale opinions and moldy ideas as you make room for an aromatic array of fresh, spicy notions. To add to your bliss, get rid of musty old feelings and decaying dreams and stinky judgments. That brave cleansing will make room for the arrival of crisp insights that smell really good.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Have you heard the term "catastrophize"? It refers to when people experience a small setback or minor problem but interpret it as being a major misfortune. It's very important that you not engage in catastrophizing during the coming weeks. I urge you to prevent your imagination from jumping to awful conclusions that aren't warranted. Use deep breathing and logical thinking to coax yourself into responding calmly. Bonus tip: In my view, the small "setback" you experience could lead to an unexpected opportunity— especially if you resist the temptation to catastrophize.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) My Buddhist friend Marcia says the ultimate goal of her meditation practice is to know that the material world is an illusion and that there is no such thing "I" or "you," no past or future. There is only the qualityless ground of being. My Sufi friend Roanne, on the other hand, is a devotee of the poet Rumi. The ultimate goal of her meditation practice is to be in intimate contact, in tender loving communion, with the Divine Friend, the personal face of the Cosmic Intelligence.

Given your astrological omens, Pisces, I'd say you're in a prime position to experience the raw truth of both Marcia's and Roanne's ideals. The coming days could bring you amazing spiritual breakthroughs!

HOMEWORK: 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

©2020 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.

freewillastrology.com The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at

1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 Willamette Week DECEMBER 9, 2020 wweek.com

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