JOANNA STERNBERG AT SHOW BAR

BY ROBERT HAM

Singer-songwriter Joanna Sternberg is an immediately disarming presence on stage and off. During opener Faustina Masigat’s set, Sternberg reacted to each song with infectious glee and wonder. And when between songs during their own set, Sternberg was charming, goofy, and forthright. No matter the subject—their love for the Beatles and Red Bull or their hoarding tendencies and ADD—the tone of their patter stayed light and playful.

she says. “Because it’s not just ‘joy.’ People’s relationship to their objects is a lot more complicated than that, right?”

In a chapter called “The Story Your Home Is Telling,” Grosvenor talks about how to use interior design to tell the story you want to hear—which sometimes involves rewriting existing stories that we no longer want to live with. She encourages readers to “consider how you might redesign or redecorate your home to tell a different, more joyful, more empowering story–one that looks forward, not back.”

Find Yourself at Home is structured into five unique illustrated sections that ask you to look a little deeper into the whys behind your living space, and what aspects of that space can be altered to align with who you are and who you want to be. Philosophy, space, build, desire and destiny are each broken down into chapters lush with anecdotal explanations for how every aspect of one’s home works together to create energy, motivation, peace and creativity.

Each chapter ends with a “Find Yourself” prompt, asking questions like, “What are some of the stories about yourself that are no longer helpful? How might you rewrite them in your home?” A chapter called “Align Your Career and Life Path” ends with a reflection: “How do you respond when you look at your front door? Does the atmosphere in your front entrance allow you to cast off your previous self when you come inside?”

As a certified feng shui consultant, Grosvenor explains that the doorway is where the energy enters a home. “I love doorways. I’m a little bit obsessed with doorways,” she says. “It’s always the first thing I look at with a home. It’s always the first place that I suggest that people look at when they want to make a shift in their lives.”

Grosvenor says that reimagining your home doesn’t have to be an expensive undertaking, or a fast one. She references the images of homes we see in design magazines. “It’s oftentimes taken two to three years to really create the spaces that you’re seeing in these magazines,” she says. “When you see a finished space, it can be very daunting to try to replicate that feeling, or even turn to your own space with gentleness and with any kind of affection. I think that we’re just flooded with these images of people who are really talented at what they do, and who are doing it very quickly.”

Grosvenor encourages people to take their time with the process of creating a home space that aligns with who they are and who they want to be—and “to see it as part of a creative process, and to really get to know their spaces and to really reenvision them as something that can collaborate with their lives.” And best of all, she shows that you don’t have to have a giant budget to do that right.

SEE IT: Emily Grosvenor will be in conversation with interior design professional Emilia Callero at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323, powells.com. 7 pm Tuesday, June 27. Free.

No surprise then that Sternberg’s music holds the same kind of energy. Their work carries a great deal of emotion, as they unpack poisonous relationships in songs like “Stockholm Syndrome” and “People Are Toys to You,” or struggles with anxiety in the bouncy “Mountain High.” But akin to the work of their closest artistic parallels, Daniel Johnston and Kimya Dawson, Sternberg brings a sugary rush to each tune via their exuberant melodies and sweetly warbling vocals.

The secret that pushes Sternberg beyond their peers is their skill as a player. Though raised in a Beatles-worshipping household, they studied classical music and jazz and spent years playing standup bass in clubs and orchestra pits. Those skills translated well to the folk-pop world Sternberg now inhabits. Their fluid, finger-picked guitar work underscored the emotional profundity that lay just below the surface of their seemingly simple lyrics.

The depth of Sternberg’s work isn’t difficult for the layperson to tap into, but it is clearly striking a nerve with their fellow artists if their Portland audience is any indication. Nearly everyone around me at Show Bar was a musician, and later I saw an Instagram post by singer-songwriter Kassi Valazza that revealed that she was hanging in the back of the room. They already get what the rest of the world is sure to understand: Joanna Sternberg is a rare talent well on the way to greater acclaim and bigger venues.

Paris Is Burning (1990)

“I don’t think the world has been fair to me…not yet anyway.” There’s longing in trans model Octavia St. Laurent’s voice when she stakes this claim in Paris Is Burning. But “longing” is just a painstricken word for ambition.

Hers are the dreams of ascendance, recognition and finery shared by many Harlem drag-ball performers who keep director Jennie Livingston’s documentary brimming with character and pathos.

Filmed across six years, Paris Is Burning immortalizes the breadth, depth, peak and petering of this Black and Latinx queer performance scene with affection for stars and bit players alike.

From exploring surrogate families to voguing to the ever-expanding list of ballroom categories, the film delights in the artists’ devotional drive—to win, to be remembered, to graduate from this small pond. Yet in Paris Is Burning, there’s no greater task in the world than sewing one’s own costume before basking in scene stardom. Clinton, June 22.

ALSO PLAYING:

Cinema 21: His Girl Friday (1940), June 24. Eraserhead (1977), June 24 and 26.

Cinemagic: Mandy (2018), June 22. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), June 23 (extended) and 26 (theatrical). The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), June 24 (extended) and 27 (theatrical). The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), June 25 (extended) and 28 (theatrical).

Clinton: Happy Together (1997), June 26. Dressed in Blue (1983), June 27.

Hollywood: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), June 23-24. Nashville (1975), June 24-25. RRR (2022), June 26. Gates of Hell (1980), June 27.