The Portland Mercury - Books

New Comics Roundup: Robot Dorks, Moon Giants, and Billionaires in Cages

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 19:30:00 GMT

by Matt Baume

This week’s new comic books touch on my favorite three time periods: The past, the present, and the future. We’ve got ancient British myths running amok; a capitalist critique in space that feels extremely timely; and a glimpse into the distant future when the world has finished ending and it’s time to pick up the pieces of what’s left.

Of those, I’m most captivated by Maybe Someday, an anthology about futures where everything turns out okay after everything goes to shit. After spending this weekend literally partying in the streets, I’m feeling a twinge of pessimism again that Trump won’t leave; that Biden’s cabinet will be too conservative; and that the vaccine won’t work. I’ve been trained to anticipate the worst over the last few years, so it’s a pleasant relief to read a book that suggests that there will be good times mixed in with the bad.

ONCE & FUTURE

Once & FutureBOOM! Studios

King Arthur is back! Unfortunately, he’s an evil zombie. That was the premise of Book #1 of 2019’s Once & Future, in which aging retired monster hunter Bridgette McGuire is called back into service, with the help of her grandson Duncan, to slay the kind of legend. Bridgette makes for a fantastic action hero—kind of Buffy in her retirement years—and the book lands a neat trick in which the swashbuckling adventure is woven into bigger ideas about the power of myth. Now Issue #2 of Once & Future is out, and with Arthur vanquished, Bridgette and Duncan find themselves facing a new fictional foe: Grendel and his mother. I’m a sucker for any story in which fantastic magic forces lay hidden in the mundane world around us, and the book does a fabulous job weaving its imaginative premise into moments of human heart. That writer Kieron Gillen manages to find fresh takes on centuries-old stories only adds to the magic.

TITAN

TitanOni Press

I’ve been impatiently awaiting François Vigneault’s Titan for a long time, and I’m delighted to report that the wait was worth it: A clever sci-fi adventure about giants in space, liberation, war, and capitalism, Titan weaves a beautiful tapestry of big adventure and big ideas. Set on a moon of Jupiter, generations of moon-miners have grown progressively larger and larger, differentiated from the physically weak Earth-bound ruling-class humans. The miners, growing increasingly unhappy with their exploitation, initiate an uprising, which complicates the budding romance between the Terran supervisor and Titan miner who are our main characters. A love story that is also a capitalist critique? Yes please.

MAYBE SOMEDAY

Maybe SomedayA Wave Blue World

The end of the world is old news! These days we’ve moved on to post-post-apocalypse, with new worlds rising up out of the ashes with a feeling of—what is this, could it be, optimism??? Hello, old friend. A pleasant remedy to the “we’re all doomed” vibe of countless recent books, Maybe Someday collects 25 tales of a better, brighter future. Remember that flicker of relief that you felt when the election was called a few days ago? Maybe Someday keeps that sensation alive, with lovely bite-sized stories (my favorite is the first one in the book, featuring robots who collect human ephemera like starry-eyed fans). A delight from cover to cover, allow this book about pure-hearted speculative futures to set the tone of your real-life future.

DANGEROUS ALIENS, JUSTICE FOR BILLIONAIRES, AND BLACK EXCELLENCE

Black AFBlack Mask Studios

Some more fun reads this week: Alienated is a coming-of-age that’s sort of Breakfast Club meets E.T. A group of teens stumble across a dangerous extraterrestrial and have to overcome their own interpersonal dramas as they cope with an unpredictable and otherworldly power. You may find Billionaire Island cathartic, in which wealthy idiots are treated to a private island where anything goes … including, eventually, a terrible price for their excesses.

There are also some Issues Twos this week to followup on previously-reviewed titles: Killjoys #2 is now out, featuring more mayhem from My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way. And there’s a second issue of Getting it Together, a lovely coming-of-adult story about grownups learning how to be grownups. Also new this week is the third volume of Black AF, in which humans develop superpowers—but only Black humans. I haven’t covered the previous two volumes, since they were first published a few years ago, but now that there’s a new collection it’s a fine time to dive on in.

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TBA:20 Begins This Weekend to Make Note of a Time We'll Never Forget

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 17:20:00 GMT

by Suzette Smith

Complete Works, A Midsummer Night's DreamForced Entertainment, Courtesy of Portland Insitute for Contemporary Art

[UPDATE: Two in person, outdoor events from festival that the Mercury recommended have been postponed, due to hazardous wildfire air. Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr.’s Grandmother(s)’s Kitchen Presents: Bring Your Own Blanket Free Community Picnic, scheduled for Sunday, September 13th, and Mobile Projection Unit's Against the Current, scheduled for Monday, September 14th, will both be rescheduled. We'll update with new dates when they are posted.]

If you didn’t know that Portland’s annual Time Based Arts Festival (TBA) is STILL ON, STILL HAPPENING, and STARTING THIS WEEKEND, don’t stress. The organization that puts it on—the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA)—didn’t know if it would be possible either, until this past June.

“We certainly didn’t know at the beginning of the pandemic,” Artistic Director and Curator of Public Engagement Roya Amirsoleymani said, via phone interview. “We didn’t know how [COVID-19] would impact the economy or the completely questionable status of nonprofits and arts organizations nationally. We didn't know what the future public health restrictions would be.”

But thanks to Beyond Now, a virtual fundraiser that PICA held in May, the nonprofit arts organization raised enough funds to throw this year's festival. They have what Amirsoleymani estimates to be "a quarter or even a fifth" of their usual budget and they paced the performances out over three weeks instead of one and a half. But it's happening.

TBA: 20 will be mostly online, but will include a number of events presented outdoors or in large enough spaces that audiences can safely distance. So if you’re a fan of challenging, prescient performance art or just interested in checking out a comic re-telling of a Shakespearean play cast with kitchen utensils, here are a few things to look for at this year’s festival.

Jaamil Olawale KosokoIMMA Asher, Courtesy of Portland Institute for Contemporary Art

One artist whose work expanded naturally into the online medium is Philidephia-based artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko whose approach to contemporary dance intersects with his studies in Black critical theory, specifically Black queer theory. Kosoko's American Chameleon: The Living Installments will occur partly via PICA's stream, and also partly via the gaming platform Discord. Kosoko is unusual among this year's performers because he's one of the few artists PICA wanted to include from the very beginning who was able to adapt his work to fit the festival's new form.

He embraced the potential to view American Chameleon through multiple approaches and worked intentionally to center his installments around Monday, September 21st—the International Day of Peace. On that day, another group of TBA artists Mobile Projection Unit will assist him by projecting American Chameleon into a grand outdoor location. Like all the TBA:20 in person events, the location won't be revealed until the day before.

Mobile Projection Unit (MPU) may already be familiar to those who've attended protests or community events where MPU co-founders Sarah Turner and Fernanda D’Agostino displayed their video artworks onto highway underpasses or on the side of buildings. Another point of reference could be D’Agostino's jaw-dropping contribution to this map is not a territory, which swathed the museum’s foyer in massive, interwoven projections of dancers in flaming forests.

Mobile Projection Unit Kristan Kennedy, Courtesy of Portland Insitute for Contemporary Art

For their Monday September 14th performance, Against the Current, the MPU invites spectators to walk along the Willamette River and take in three video and sound installations that "map the wide-ranging moods of water as it flows and cascades."

In addition to providing projection assistance to Kosoko, MPU will also project a compilation of short video works—dubbed "samples of recent American history"—which were curated by Jibade-Khalil Huffman and titled IN LIEU OF AN OCEAN (SEND FLOWERS) on a large scale in an outdoor setting, next Monday September 28th. This noted helpfulness and desire to collaborate with other artists is something Amirsoleymani describes as part of MPU's artistic process.

"[MPU] supports other artists in taking advantage of the technologies they employ to make the whole sonic and visual experience of these place-based projects come to life. Nothing surprised me about their recent involvement with the uprisings and community events because they really understand that connection between activism and art. Many artists in Portland also identify as activists and vice versa. Or they see no difference, no distinction, especially now."

IN LIEU OF AN OCEAN (SEND FLOWERS) sits like a centerpiece within the greater banquet of TBA:20 and like Kosoo's American Chameleon, it too can be viewed a number of different ways. If you don't want to wait until the 28th, the installation can be viewed Thurs-Sun in PICA's 3,000-square-foot warehouse between the hours of 12-6 pm.

Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr.Margaret Jacobsen, Courtesy of Portland Institute for Contemporary Art

Another promising outdoor event is local artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr.'s Grandmother(s)’s Kitchen Presents: Bring Your Own Blanket Free Community Picnic and Discussion. It's as simple to explain as: A socially-distanced community picnic outdoors, complete with measuring sticks. Yet the action of attendees coming together carries a sincere potential to be profound. And Stevenson's collaboration with two Black-owned food vendors—Kee’s Loaded Kitchen and Plant Based Papi—sounds delicious.

It's worth noting that all the installations at this year's TBA:20 are free, with the exception of The Who Cares Clock (an essay you can request through the mail by sending in two forever stamps or $1.10 in postage) and the West Coast premiere of Charles Mudede's latest feature film Thin Skin (sliding-scale $5-15). Mudede directed and co-wrote Thin Skin with Ahamefule J. Oluo and Lindy West, basing it on Oluo's life and his award-winning stand-up memoir musical Now I'm Fine. (Conflict of interest note: Mudede is a longtime staff writer and critic for The Stranger, the Mercury's sister paper, and West is a former Stranger writer.)

Being that they are a nonprofit, PICA suggests donations from audience members attending this year's fest, but they're passing on half that pot to social justice and racial equity organizations like Don’t Shoot PDX, Pueblo Unido, and the MRG Foundation’s Since Time Immemorial Fund. At multiple points throughout our conversation Amirsoleymani described PICA as a conduit through which money flows to artists. "Fundamentally. Paying artists. It's what we do," she said. Even as Beyond Now was a fundraiser for PICA, they paid their artists. Now, this festival presents yet another opportunity for PICA to distribute funds to struggling artists on a local, national, and international scale. But that's not the only reason you should go to TBA:20. You should go because TBA is awesome.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I tell time by TBA, I can count the years. Every year I have some transformative experience in the care of PICA's extraordinary curation. So holding the festival this year feels especially important because TBA is a place where we mark time and right now is a time none of us will likely ever forget.

PICA's TBA:20 runs through Wed Sept 30. To view the complete schedule, visit pica.org/tba.

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Reading List: Queer and Trans Black Authors Through the Decades

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 22:31:29 GMT

by Alex Zielinski

This article is part of the Mercury's 2020 all-digital Queer Week coverage.

Author Audre LordeSpellman College archives

In Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin writes, “I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am, also, much more than that.” These words could be used to describe any LGBTQ+ writer, but perhaps best define queer Black authors living in America. This list below highlights a sampling of essential literature—everything from memoirs to science fiction—from Black LGBTQ+ writers over the past decades.

Real Life (2020) — Brandon Taylor
This new novel follows the story oa f Black queer man who leaves Alabama to attend college in the Midwest, where he tangles with homophobia, racism, insecurity, and the pursuit of self-preservation.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982) — Audre Lorde
A peek into Lorde’s experience as a queer, working class Black woman living in New York City during the 1950s—all told in Lorde’s lush, poetic writing style.

No Ashes in the Fire (2018) — Darnell Moore
An honest, vulnerable memoir describing Moore’s life as gay Black boy coming of age in Camden, New Jersey during the crosshairs of the AIDS epidemic and the War on Drugs.

Redefining Realness (2014) — Janet Mock
While some criticize Mock’s attachment to hetronormative norms in her memoir, her book is groundbreaking in its ability to talk candidly about navigating the world as a transgender woman of color. A good read for folks who need a little hand-holding in understanding what it means to be trans.

Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (2008) — E. Patrick Johnson
This non-fiction book is made up of stories collected from more than sixty Black gay men who were born, raised, and live in the South. The collection twists stereotypes and adds nuance to a population that rarely is handed the mic.

Black Girl Dangerous: On Race, Queerness, Class and Gender (2014) — Mia McKenzie
This non-fiction collection of personal essays about being a queer Black woman is the essential guide to understanding intersectionality (and it’s funny, too!).

Wow, No Thank You (2020) — Samantha Irby
Irby’s latest collection of essays artfully use self-deprecation and wiping-tears-from-your-eyes humor to tell deeper stories about privilege, gender, and existing in uncomfortable spaces.

Black Panther: World of Wakanda (series) (2016) — Roxanne Gay (et al)
This comic series, co-authored by Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates tells the story of the badass queer Black women who work as Black Pather’s bodygaurds. ENOUGH SAID.

Parable of the Sower (2000) — Octavia Butler
This science fiction novel set in a dystopian world drowning in social, economical, and environmental crises is just as relevant—maybe more—than it was when it was published 20 years ago. Imagine The Road, but with a teenage heroine, uncomfortably relatable scenes of social collapse, and longer sentences.

American Dreams (poetry collection) (1996) — Sapphire
Before writing the novel that became the film Precious, Sapphire poured pain, love, and rage into these beautifully brutal poems on racism, sexual trauma, and police brutality.

Lot (2019)— Bryan Washington
This conversational collection of short stories discets gender, sexuality, class, and race through the eyes of a Black Latinx boy coming of age in Houston, in the years surrounding Hurricane Harvey.

The Salt Roads (2003) — Nalo Hopkinson
Hopkinson weaves the story of a Haitian slave, an Egyptian sex worker, a Parisian dancer and several other women together in a whirlwind novel spanning time and seeped in magical realism.

Felix Every After (YA novel) (2020) — Kacen Callender
This Young Adult novel follows Felix, a Black, queer, and transgender teen, as he pines for romance and self-acceptance. One of many new, spectacular YA novels with a trans teen protagonist.

How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir (2019) — Saeed Jones
Jones melts together poetry and prose in this memoir, which documents his tumultuous, tender adolescence as a Black gay boy growing up in Texas.

Notes of a Native Son (1955) — James Baldwin
Baldwin’s first collection of non-fiction essays focus on civil rights, art, and racial divides in Harlem and abroad. An accessible, powerful point of entry for Baldwin newbies.

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Multnomah County Libraries to Start No-Contact Pickup Service on June 8

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 23:15:38 GMT

by Robert Ham

Multnomah County Library

Multnomah County Library announced today that they will begin no-contact, appointment-only pickup of reserved materials starting on June 8.

The rollout for this new service will start with just four library branches—Central, Gresham, Midland, and North Portland—before expanding out to other locations through the month. Also, on June 8, all Multnomah County Library branches will open up their book drops for the return of borrowed materials. All items will be quarantined for 72 hours.

Patrons will have to call and make an appointment and then stop by their chosen branch to pick them up. After giving their name to library staff, they will be asked to give the employee distance until the books are brought out and left for them on the pickup table. Full instructions on how to use the pickup system can be found here.

Sidewalk pickup for books will expand to eight other Multnomah County branches (Belmont, Capitol Hill, Gregory Heights, Holgate, Hollywood, Kenton, Rockwood, and St. Johns) starting on June 15, with more locations joining in a week later.

While the physical branches for the libraries won't be open during this time, Library Director Vailey Oehlke hopes they'll be able to open up some branches for time-limited computer service for patrons to use for job applications, filing for unemployment, and other benefit application assistance. That, however, won't be possible until Multnomah County enters Phase 1 of the state's reopening plan. As our Alex Zielinski reported, that could happen as soon as June 12.

“We are grateful and excited to begin the process of resuming some physical library services," Oehlke said in the news release. "Having libraries closed due to COVID-19 has been wrenching for our community and it requires that we fundamentally rethink the work we do, guided by a set of priorities that sharpens our focus on community recovery."

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The Best Things to Do While Staying Home and Staying Safe: Memorial Day!

Mon, 25 May 2020 15:23:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Uncut Gems
It's beyond bizarre to know for a fact this exhausting, nerve-jangling drama is going to be the most watched thing on Netflix for the next couple of weeks, considering it's a low-budget arthouse flick directed by the Safdie Brothers, who specialize in choppy, frenetic, aggressively off-putting narratives about amoralistic assholes spiraling down into a void of self-destruction. So why are millions upon millions of people 100-percent not ready for the torrent of noise and teeth-grinding discomfort that is Uncut Gems (Streaming May 25, Netflix) going to unwittingly subject themselves to it ASAP? Because it's got Adam Sandler in it. Probably the best performance Sandler's ever given, in fact. It's not the funniest performance in the movie, though. That belongs to Kevin Garnett.

The Story of Soaps
What better way to celebrate staying home on a Monday afternoon than by digging into The Story of Soaps (Now streaming, Hulu). Soaps are long past due for a star-studded retrospective like this, especially since they were the first mainstreamed examples of "shared universes" and "binge watching," and "time shifting" (I can't be the only kid whose mom taught herself how to program a VCR to maintain a library of All My Children stories.) A ton of the home entertainment innovations we all take for granted here in 2020 were invented by the soaps, and a panel of experts including Carol Burnett, John Stamos, Susan Lucci, Bryan Cranston, Agnes Nixon, Erika Slezak, and Alec Baldwin will walk viewers through the soaps' foamy, fantastic history. But be warned: With about a half hour to go, it... sorta becomes an informercial for reality shows? As if Real Housewives, as fun as it might be to watch, could ever, EVER compete with Erica Kane or Viki Lord.

Fire up the Grill!
There's a lot of unnecessary mystique surrounding the grill, and were this a normal Memorial Day there'd probably be a couple fights already over who gets to make fire and put food on said fire for eating later. But don't let any grunting neanderthal friends of yours intimidate you away from that Weber: Grilling really isn't that hard, and to prove it, YouTube cooking celebrity Anthony Rea of the Binging with Babish channel has a short 'n' sweet 10-minute video that can catch you up on the basics of grilling, basics that most chest-thumping grill captains only pretend to know.

Wolfenstein: The New Order
Doom: Eternal came out earlier this year and continued Bethesda's winning streak of story-driven, ultra-violent-yet-oddly-charming single-player first-person-shooters (whew that's a lotta hyphens). But there's an alternate history where Doom doesn't get successfully revived, because on that timeline, Wolfenstein: The New Order isn't a fast, fun, and satisfying success of gameplay and storytelling that takes gaming by storm in 2014. Luckily, we live in this timeline, where Wolfenstein's revival winningly used gonzo sci-fi settings and outlandish what-if scenarios (i.e. what if Nazis won WWII and established a goddamn MOONBASE guarded by ROBOT DOGS) to tell an honest-to-god affecting story of resistance against fascism in all its forms. If you've never played it, it's only $9.99 on PS4 right now, and you could do worse than to spend a cozy Memorial Day utterly destroying a bunch of space Nazis. Hey, speaking of which...
Star Wars
May 25, 1977 was the day a bearded nerd named George Lucas released Star Wars—a low-budget mashup of Akira Kurosawa movies and Flash Gordon serials—to less than 40 theaters. The movie starred a soap actor named Mark Hamill as the improbably named Luke Skywalker, a dorky hick from the boondocks who meets up with a maddeningly smug mystic (Alec Guinness) that drafts him to rescue a pissed-off princess (Carrie Fisher) with the help of an arrogant dipshit Uber driver (Harrison Ford) and his overgrown dog (Peter Mayhew). They all end up overthrowing a fascist regime of space Nazis along the way. It ended up being pretty, pretty popular. It's available to stream on Disney+, if you want to watch it. There's a beeping trash can that talks mad shit the whole movie, too. He's the best.

World War Z
DID YOU KNOW: The guy who played Luke Skywalker is also a very good voice actor? He was the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, for example. That means he was the best version of the Joker ever. And yet: It can be argued that's not even his best voice acting performance! Because he also played gunner Todd Wainio, veteran of the Battle of Yonkers, in the audiobook of Max Brooks'World War Z (available at MultCo Library w/ Card; on Audible, $28 to buy, free trial here) and Hamill's performance is good enough to almost make you forget he didn't actually survive a zombie apocalypse. Brooks' book was made into an okay blockbuster movie, but there is likely no version of World War Z that ever tops the audiobook, which along with Hamill features a cast that includes F. Murray Abraham, Alan Alda, Rob and Carl Reiner, Henry Rollins, Nathan Fillion, John Turturro, David Ogden Stiers, and Alfred Molina among others.<

Little Fires Everywhere
Hulu's adaptation of Celeste Ng's best-selling book has been knocked for essentially removing all nuance from Ng's novel, and it's hard to disagree that the story is a lot louder than it was on the page; This show doesn't feel like the book... but the sour, entitled, pretty-on-the-outside-but-mean-as-fuck-for-no-good-reason vibe it absolutely nails from its first 15 minutes on? That's some genuinely authentic '90s nastiness; the kind of sunshine-covered bitterness these characters would snidely razz as they watched their umpteenth hour of Ricki Lake from the comfort of their couch. The miniseries is now available in full on Hulu, and the approach taken with the source material (an approach Ng herself applauded, probably best realized dramatically by executive producer and director Lynn Shelton) makes a lot more sense when the reworked story is taken as a whole.

Cirque du Soleil: Kurios
In 2017, Cirque du Soleil brought their big-top extravagance to Portland to transforms the Moda Center into the curio cabinet of an old-timey inventor, bending reality, time, and space into a variety of stages and platforms by which this troupe of amazingly flexible performers do their mind-and-body-bending work. If you missed that show, head to YouTube and get yourself yourself a (third) eyeful of this steampunk wonder.

Young M.A.
Young M.A—born Katorah Marrero—is unique among her peers. While her low voice, stud swagger, and off-the-charts machismo may give the impression she uses alternate pronouns, the artist has made it clear she’s perfectly at home in her assigned female gender. She named her 2017 EP Herstory, after all, and followed that up with the critically acclaimed Herstory in the Making, and just this weekend released her latest, Red Flu. While Young M.A’s sexuality is definitely part of her content, it’s not a gimmick she’s leaning on. She didn’t set out on some heroic mission to pave the way for other queer rappers. She simply came into the game as the real her—for better or for worse. Now M.A is unintentionally changing the narrative for what is and isn’t acceptable in rap, just by being authentically, unapologetically herself. JENNI MOORE

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Powell's Books to Offer Contact-Free Store Pickup

Thu, 21 May 2020 16:19:00 GMT

by Robert Ham

Powell's BooksK marie

Bibliophiles now have a new option to snag the latest Erik Larson novel in person, as beloved Portland institution Powell's Books is finally offering customers the option of contact-free pickup at the store's Burnside location, starting today.

As the renowned bookseller announced on its website, you can now choose to stop by the downtown shop and snag your online order from a table outside the shop's entrance on 11th and Couch.

These contactless orders don't just apply to the stock on hand at the Burnside shop either. Powell's will ship over any books that might be in their other store locations or at their partner warehouses. It just might take a little longer to get your books that way.

While Powell's has been doing yeoman's work to ship a flood of online orders, they're far from the first Portland bookshop to offer in-person pickup. Nearly all the independent bookstores in the Portland metro area have been offering curbside pickup for months now. Still, considering the breadth of reading material that Powell's continues to offer, this new option is a welcome spot of positive news on this grey Portland morn.

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The Best Things to Do While Staying Home and Staying Safe: Wed May 20

Wed, 20 May 2020 15:00:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

The Stranger's Silent Reading Party
Every Wednesday at 6 pm we're going to throw these parties, at least until stay-at-home is over. Attendees at the first Zoom silent-reading party included famous actors, writers, composers, artists, families, teenagers doing their homework, people staring into space listening to the music because it was just so beautiful, cats, and even one household on Orcas Island that was eating dinner and decided to broadcast the reading party as their background music. (What a brilliant idea!) It wasn't just a great party to be at. Behind the scenes, this was a roaring success as well. Our musician Paul Matthew Moore made ten times more on Venmo tips than he's ever made in the tip jar at the Sorrento (thank you for your generosity—he deserves it!), and hundreds of people at the party have written us emails, clamoring for more. CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

The Talisman
Looking for a good book to read while you're enjoying that Silent Reading ambiance? Why not go big, go pop, go KING: Stephen King, that is, one of the most well-read human beings on Earth, and also one of the most well-watched since practically everything he's ever imagined has been turned into a movie or a TV show. One of the few he's written that hasn't? His fantasy epic The Talisman, co-written with Peter Straub (ebook available at MultCo Library w/ card, physical copies avail at Powell's, $19.99). The story has almost been adapted by Steven Spielberg three or four times by now, but until that happens, the universe those two masters of horror spin out in the pages of The Talisman can only be visited in your mind, and it's a pretty damned wondrous (and scary) place to go.

The Kingcast
Speaking of those multitudes of adapted King titles: There's a podcast for that now! For a ton of people, Stephen King is more like a name-brand than an author, and their first exposure to him has been via film or tv, not his plain-spoken prose. The quality of those adaptations varies a little more wildly than the quality of the source material, and Birth.Movies.Death EIC Scott Wampler has teamed up with film critic Eric Vespe to provide a podcast guide to the best and worst of King's catalog. The Kingcast is opening strong with special guest Kumail Nanjiani helping them take a look at The Running Man, a movie that doesn't have much to do with the short story it sprang from, but does feature Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Richard Dawson as directed by one half of Starsky & Hutch.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (now streaming, Netflix) is a sweet, sad movie that hinges on the topic of mental illness in young men, and sets his mental health issues amid the fashion, mixtapes, and Rocky Horror Picture Show-screenings of teenagers dabbling in the counterculture in the late-'90s; the whole thing is one hell of a nostalgia trip. (Cracker is on the soundtrack, for chrissakes.) It's a great little movie, one that stands right next to Dazed and Confused for perfectly capturing an accurate decade-in-a-bottle snapshot of suburban American teenagers. ALISON HALLETT

Ben Platt: Live from Radio City Music Hall
On the subject of of acclaimed portrayals of teen anxiety: Ben Platt achieved bonafide Broadway stardom in Dear Evan Hansen, and followed that up by joining Ryan Murphy's gleefully dysfunctional TV family, anchoring Netflix's satire The Politician. Now he's leveraging that Netflix power to get his own hourlong special on the platform, called Ben Platt: Live from Radio City Music Hall. He's got a band, he's got some personal songs to sing, some personal stories to share, and one amazing floral-pattern shirt to sweat through all night long.

Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
Perfume Genius is the project of singer/songwriter Mike Hadreas, whose albums tend to revolve around themes of sexuality, addiction, chronic illness, abuse, and homophobia. He sings about being gay and the frustration of being punished for something he can’t control, but he greets pain with sardonic wit, imagining his own transcendence in grand, sweeping protest music. This is reflected in fluid movements between genres, from glam rock to the magic of Angelo Badalamenti’s piano ballads to stringed chamber folk to TLC-inspired R&B grooves to volcanic pop anthems. They’re all united by Hadreas’ androgynous voice—he’s always commanding the center, through explosive moments of catharsis and lighter-treading hymns. CIARA DOLAN

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What We're Enjoying: The Great, Little Fires Everywhere, Mary Tyler Moore, and More

Tue, 19 May 2020 21:00:10 GMT

by Wm. Steven Humphrey, Blair Stenvick, Alex Zielinski, Bobby Roberts, and Robert Ham

The GreatOllie Upton/Hulu

When we’re not working our tails off to bring you breaking news on the coronavirus and updates on the election, the Mercury editorial team is spending evenings and weekends much like you: filling our free time with whatever entertainment we can get our mitts on. So if you’re looking for some suggestions of films, TV shows, or books that you can while away the hours with, here are some of our favorites from the past few weeks.

For those who fear that The Great—Hulu's original series about empress of Russia, Catherine the Great—is a stuffy, historical bore-fest that will have you clawing your eyes out... well, this definitely ain't that. Elle Fanning stars as Catherine in this historically inaccurate comedy about a forward thinking and wildly optimistic French girl who's sent to marry Emperor Peter III of Russia (a fantastic Nicholas Hoult) and finds her world turned upside down—and then turns the world rightside up in response. Written by The Favourite screenwriter Tony McNamara, you can expect off-kilter, smart, anachronistic humor paired with deeply likable (and unlikable) characters.

Fanning is truly "great" as Catherine, whose feminist awakening is fueled by her hubby's churlish/whoring/insane behavior, inspiring the coup that eventually leads to her ruling Russia for a good portion of the 18th century. But pay close attention to the razor-sharp performance from Phoebe Fox, Catherine's handmaiden/fallen aristocrat: Her understated sly portrayal is simultaneously heartbreaking, funny, and cunning, making her one of my fave characters in the series. In short, The Great provides top notch performances, gorgeous costumes, and a whip-smart script filled with sex, violence, poop talk, and just a smidge of education—if that's okay with you.—Wm. Steven Humphrey

Over the past couple weeks I have, somewhat coincidentally, read two recent blockbuster novels that have also been adapted for TV: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and Normal People by Sally Rooney.

Both of these books have a straightforward, almost pedestrian quality at first blush—they’re a suburban comedy of manners and a tale of young adult love, respectively. But the more I read each of them, the more pleasantly enveloped I became in their settings and characters and syntax. I wanted to race to finish each of them, a feeling that becomes rarer the older and busier I get.

Quarantine offers the ideal parameters for getting lost in a bestselling novel—there’s not too much going on in your real life, you have hours to spend indoors, and you might not have the bandwidth for a denser title. Both Little Fires Everywhere and Normal People are fine options to consider when plotting your next literary escape.—Blair Stenvick

The Mary Tyler Moore ShowHulu

While thumbing around Hulu looking for something easy-listening to put on in the background, I stumbled over The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a sitcom classic I didn't even know was ON the platform until Mary's face was grinning out at me from my TV. And I hit play fully intending it to just be background noise—but the show itself wasn't going to let me shrug it off that easily. It was created in 1970 by James L. Brooks, who you might recognize as a name behind the movie Broadcast News and also a quaint animated program called The Simpsons.

To reference a recently wrapped-up sports documentary: The Mary Tyler Moore Show is basically the sitcom equivalent of Phil Jackson getting to coach Michael Jordan. Does that make this show the Chicago Bulls of sitcom history? Is there a version of this blurb that morphs into a 3,000 word thinkpiece extending the analogy to how Cheers = the Boston Celtics and The Honeymooners = the New York Knicks? Thankfully, you'll never have to read that (it's probably already a three-hour Bill Simmons podcast anyway), but rediscovering The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an affirmation of just how influential this show was, and how ahead of their time Mary and James were—not just in political terms, but also as a constantly impressive example of how thoughtful, emotional, and satisfying mainstream prime-time comedy could be.—Bobby Roberts

The X-FilesFOX

I’m currently re-watching The X-Files, which I forgot has an alarming number of pandemic/alien virus episodes which usually end with a “welp, looks like another government coverup” conclusion. Fox Mulder is one hundred percent the guy at the Oregon Capitol rally wearing a trenchcoat and holding a QAnon sign. This is why I’m writing in “Dana Scully’s skeptical sighs” for President.

Another accidentally relatable watch: 2018’s Annihilation, a horror/sci-fi flick featuring Natalie Portman as a slightly self-destructive biologist investigating a mysterious military mission that left her soldier husband (played by a “meh” Oscar Isaac) fatally ill. The film (by Ex Machina director Alex Garland) is hauntingly beautiful and dark, weaving together psychedelic alien shenanigans and thought-provoking scientific theories to create a truly unique premise. I loved following Portman and her all-woman cadre of equally self-destructive scientists (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny) through an eerily beautiful swamp to uncover its alien architect.—Alex Zielinski

Fat GirlCriterion

When dealing with the absolutely overwhelming amount of entertainment options available to us via streaming services, cable TV, and on demand platforms, I need some kind of direction to help guide me through it all, lest I spend an hour scrolling before giving up completely. Luckily, at the start of the pandemic, I stumbled upon They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?, a website run by a dedicated (read: insane) cinephile from Australia. It’s a kind of critical aggregator, compiling lists of all-time favorite films—as chosen by well-known directors and accomplished critics—that have been published in magazines and online and turning those selections into a mega-list of the 1,000 Greatest Films. It’s the kind of obsessive project I could see myself doing if I didn’t have a day job and a kid to raise. And it was the perfect road map for my nightly viewing schedule.

Working my way from #1,000 to #1 and skipping over the movies I’ve already seen, I have been treated to a wondrous array of cinematic styles and eras. My favorites so far include Catherine Breillat’s absolutely brutal feminist allegory Fat Girl, Akira Kurosawa’s beautiful humanist drama Red Beard, John Waters’ appropriately outlandish Female Trouble, and Kim Ki-Duk’s poignant Buddhist exploration Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring. It all adds up to a film history class that I can manage at my own pace and is blessedly free of homework. —Robert Ham

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The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Thurs May 14

Thu, 14 May 2020 15:30:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Beyond Now: A Virtual Fundraiser for PICA
PICA is an absolute good for this community, and for anyone who values art in all its forms, and wants to make sure they're supporting creative acts and local arts. With over 30 artists sharing new performance, video, and visual works, as well as conversations with creators, dance parties, and more, this three-day fundraiser features contributions from Ahamefule J. Oluo, Allie Hankins, Ilana Harris Babou, Francesca Capone, Morgan Ritter, Libby Werbel, Eiko Otaka, Miranda July, Linda Austin, and many, many more. It all starts today, and culminates in a special livestream on Saturday. Pay the stream a visit, and if you can, literally pay the stream to help keep the arts alive in Portland.

Harry Potter Reads Harry Potter to You
Now this is comfy-couch quarantine content done right: Spotify, the once spunky music-streaming upstart that is now a media juggernaut and podcast empire all-in-one, is using its power for good with Harry Potter at Home, a star-studded read-along of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Those stars include Harry himself, Daniel Radcliffe, as well as Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), Hermione Granger (Noma Dumezweni), David Beckham (Mr. Sporty Spice), Dakota Fanning (what the hell, that's a Twilight star!) and many more, with special guests sure to pop up before the last chapter of Harry's first Hogwarts adventure is done.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Earlier this week we talked about the impact on television made by writer/producers Garry Marshall and Norman Lear, but they weren't at all the only giants in the '70s making consistently groundbreaking TV. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Now streaming, Hulu) premiered in 1970 with a pilot script from writer/producer James L. Brooks, whose name you might recognize from other successes such as Taxi and an animated program called The Simpsons. Of course, Brooks had a headstart like almost nobody else in television, because his star was one of the best and most beloved actors the medium ever saw. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was the sitcom equivalent of Phil Jackson getting to coach Michael Jordan. And while classic TV makes for great binge-watching in ways both completely intentional (but often very much not), The Mary Tyler Moore Show is a great lockdown go-to because Mary's work, Brooks' writing, and the chops of the ensemble cast that filled in around her (Ed Asner! Ted Knight! Betty White!) wasn't just top-notch for the time, it's still ahead of the game even now.

Pickathon Presents: Built to Spill
Hopefully you've been checking in daily with Pickathon's response to COVID-19 trying to squash everyone's outdoor festival fun, and enjoying the gems from their vault on a regular basis. Today's gem (premiering at 1 pm on YouTube) is one of those uncut kind—a 2018 performance from the Woods stage by Northwest indie-rock heroes Built to Spill. Are they the best thing to ever come out of Boise, ID? After watching this set, you can make one hell of a case for that statement being irrevocably true.

The Eddy
The latest burst of jazz-flavored drama from Oscar-winning writer/director Damian Chazelle (La La Land, Whiplash) isn't lighting up a big screen (because that doesn't really happen anymore unless you've got one of those fancy projector setups in your house or whatever), it's on Netflix. Debuting this past Friday, The Eddy seems like it should be a kind-of-chill slice-of-life about a guy (Andre Holland) running a jazz club in Paris and trying to be a good parent to his estranged daughter (Amandla Stendberg). But because it's Chazelle, it's also a crime-drama about an exile from the States just trying to stay relevant musically while ducking shady underworld types coming after him, that plays out its eight-episode run like an actual jazz ensemble giving its players a lot of room to solo.

It Was Good Until it Wasn't
R&B used to be one of the most tried & true genres of music, a place you could go to and just know what kind of soothing, soulful vibes you'd find. But in 2020, R&B is one of the most fluid genres of music around, redefining itself with standout releases by adventurous young artists almost every month. The latest vanguard is Kehlani, who has definitely been around for a minute—she helped the Biebs on his last tour through Portland, in fact, but couldn't get him for a guest spot on It Was Good Until it Wasn't. No disrespect to Justin's increasingly irrelevant hesher-lookin-ass, but Kehlani didn't need him on this one. Especially not when she's got guests spots from Masego, Tory Lanez, Jhene Aiko, Lucky Daye, and James Blake.

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The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Wed May 13

Wed, 13 May 2020 15:30:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Geek Love
Looking for something to read during the abovementioned party? This one's a gimme, since if you're true to type as a slightly alienated liberal currently residing in Portland, odds are good that Katherine Dunn's Geek Love (ebook avail at MultCo Library w/ card, physical copies at Powell's, $16.99) is already one of your favorite books. Dunn went to Reed College, and her account of a traveling family of circus freaks is one of the most beloved books ever written by a Portland author. ALISON HALLETT

Spaceship Earth
The Northwest Film Center and Portland Art Museum present this special week-long virtual screening of Matt Wolf's documentary Spaceship Earth, about the 1991 science experiment where eight people voluntarily quarantined themselves from the rest of the world inside BIOSPHERE 2, a self-engineered replica of the Earth's ecosystem. Proceeds from each ticket sold benefit both the Northwest Film Center and Portland Art Museum.

Tank Girl
In 1995, Rachel Talalay directed an adaptation of the cult comic Tank Girl, starring Lori Petty and Naomi Watts. Nobody in the film industry had carved out a space for something like Tank Girl to exist within, so when Talalay and Petty made that space, a lot of people (men) sneered at its loud, scattered, ridiculous indulgence and dismissed it. And it is those things! Most comic book adaptations are! But instead of starring roided-up hulkmen bleeding asinine catchphrases, Tank Girl centers on an irreverent feminist anti-hero who gives not one solitary fuck about protecting for any dude's limited conception of what "comic book" movies can be. Tank Girl, even in its compromised, misunderstood form, is still something of a minor miracle of the genre. It shouldn't exist. But there she is. Now streaming on Hulu, straddling a tank turret, laughing, and flying double birds at you from 1995.

Petals for Armor
It was never easy being an emo-punk vocalist in an almost all-male Active Rock world, and Hayley Williams became almost as well known for her vocals and her sharp, spiky songwriting in Paramore as she was known for her band's constant infighting and imploding, much of it (very unfairly) laid at her feet. Moving through adulthood at the center of like 30 different ridiculous rock 'n' roll controversies is bound to put you in an interesting headspace, and Williams' first ever solo album—really, a trilogy of EPs—is pretty much a big fat pop-music exhalation of pent-up frustration, fire, and maybe most surprisingly, kindness. There's an undercurrent of empathy in all of Petals for Armor's songs, and it shines clearly whether Hayley's compositions are roaring with guitars, or sliding around much smoother grooves.

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The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Sat May 9

Sat, 09 May 2020 15:00:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

The 15th Annual HUMP! Film Festival
We at HUMP! were crushed to cancel our originally planned Spring re-screening, with the coronavirus crisis forcing us all inside. But after receiving enthusiastic support and permission from the filmmakers to show their films online, we knew that the show must go on! Even if we can’t watch together in movie theaters, we can still watch the 16 all new, sexy short films, curated by Dan Savage, in the privacy and safety of our homes. Dan will introduce the show (starts 7pm tonight,) and then take you straight to the great dirty movies that showcase an amazing range of shapes, colors, sexualities, kinks and fetishes!

MTV's The Challenge
This last Wednesday, Jasmyne Keimig wrote a piece celebrating the resurgence of "smooth-brained" reality TV as a balm for the time we live in, a time where every tidbit of news seems specially formulated to stab, spike, and wrinkle our cerebral cortex to anxious ruin. Well, if it's smooth-brained fun you seek, might we suggest one of the best possible options: MTV's The Challenge, the best possible iteration on the "Battle of the Network Stars" idea, and one of the rare examples of a TV-spinoff that effectively replaced its progenitors, The Real World and Road Rules. CBS/Viacom's free-streaming platform Pluto TV has an entire channel dedicated to nothing but looping whole seasons of the show (currently in the middle of its 35th season on MTV proper). It hasn't just outgrown The Real World (or killed it, more accurately) it's now pulling in contestants from other Viacom reality shows, including Big Brother, Are You the One, Geordie Shore, Survivor, and more. When the two finalists of The Ringer's latest "Best Reality Character" bracket both come from this show? Trust that it gets no more smooth-brained than The Challenge.

Erykah Badu vs. Jill Scott

Normally, we suggest that in the case of these super-popular Verzuz "battles" on Instagram (they're not really battles because nobody really loses when so much good music is pouring out of the speakers like this) that you wait until after the battle is over, seek out a good recap of the stories being told by the participants to read, and then turn up the compilation playlists that appear on Spotify, and enjoy being able to actually listen to the music. Well, in this case, we're throwing all that good advice out, because the jewels of wisdom guaranteed to be dropped by Erykah Badu and Jill Scott during their livestream (4pm on Insta) are going to be too precious to miss. Plus, you'll want to be there to see what happens when both of them try to break out "You Got Me" by the Roots. It'll probably look like this, but with better headwear.

Gabriel Rucker Helps you Cook a Mother's Day Brunch
Le Pigeon's Gabriel Rucker knows you want to do something special for the day, like the overachieving child you've always been, when your other siblings got her cards and whatever weird gift they could afford with their meager allowance and you brown-nosed your way to the head of the class with some special handmade thing that made you her favorite even though she said she doesn't have favorites but we all know that's bullshit, right? ANYWAY: since you can't just come to Le Pigeon for their regular Mother's Day brunch, he's going to show you how to make his special latkes and apple pear sauce on his Insta at noon. It's as close as you'll likely get to Chef Rucker helping you in your own kitchen, so if you wanna go for those extra-extra brownie points, you can tell mom that the head chef at Le Pigeon helped you make these! It's only kind of a lie, right?

Mother's Day Shopping
Okay, so you're one of the other (normal) kids who isn't trying to rope five-star chefs into your Mother's Day plots. You know you just wanna get her something she'll appreciate from the store. One of the bigger Mother's Day conundrums is always "what the hell do I get her?" She gave you life, you gave her a pen? A card it took you all of two minutes to dig out of a rack at Wal-Mart? Nah. One of the best solutions is to let her choose what she wants, and Crafty Wonderland is all about this option, providing special "virtual appointments" for shoppers, which means you email Crafty Wonderland, set up a time, and someone at the Crafty store will then log in, turn on the camera, fire up either Zoom or FaceTime, and walk the store with you, stopping and pulling stuff off the shelves to be shipped to mom (or you I guess, you selfish, selfish child!). Appointments generally take about 30-45 minutes, and shipping is free for purchases over $50.

Red May
At this point you might be almost as sick of this holiday and it's commercialism as its poor creator was, before she died mostly-broke in the late '40s after decades of fighting against the holiday's capitalistic existence. GOOD NEWS: It's Red May! This annual, intellectual "vacation from capitalism" ("the most star-studded regular radical left event in Seattle," as The Stranger's Charles Mudede writes) offers new takes on Marx, equality, and economics in community spaces. The monthlong festival began on May 1st, and will continue throughout the month through virtual meetings on Zoom, featuring guests like Jodi Dean, Leo Panitch, Kathi Weeks, Micheal Hardt, Joshua Clover, and Doug Henwood. Click here for a complete list of speakers, guests, and panel times.

Read a Poem: Sylvia Plath

Let's begin by recalling what Ezra Pound once said about the ideal condition for music and poetry: "Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... [and] poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music." For now, let's forget that Pound became a fascist and that his poems were more imagistic than musical—and we will also stay clear of the horrors he created in the name of Li Bai—and focus on the music that fills Plath's poem, which you can hear her read here, in 1958, five years before she committed suicide in a London apartment. Listen to the music: "Of sulphurous dreamscapes and obscure lunar conundrums," and here: "Trailing its telltale tatters only at the outermost / Fringe of mundane vision, this ghost goes," and here: "And moo as they jump over moons as new / As that crisp cusp toward which you voyage now." You can find this poem in The Colossus and Other Poems, available at local bookstores. CHARLES MUDEDE

Takeout & a Movie: Phoenix, Oregon
Dinner & a Movie is a date-night tradition that's had to shift a little (as all things have) while sheltered-in-place, and that's put a lot of stress on the local food service and film communities. The Oregon Hospitality Foundation is looking to address all of that tonight with this special livestream movie night. $6.50 gets you a rental link (and a free digital copy to own later this summer) to director Gary Lundgren’s Ashland-made film in which a divorced, middle-age graphic artist (James Le Gros) who's suffering “delusions of aliens controlling his life" decides to buy an abandoned bowling alley. That’s one depressing-sounding midlife crisis… but also, hey! Bowling! And co-stars including Diedrich Bader, Kevin Corrigan, Jesse Borrego, and Lisa Edelstein! It also includes a Q&A with the filmmakers that starts live at 7pm, and all revenues will go towards the Oregon Hospitality Foundation's support of restaurants affected by COVID-19.

20 Feet from Stardom
A documentary that turns the spotlight away from the biggest music stars of the last 60 years and onto their backup singers. These singers—often women, mostly black—are responsible for some of the most memorable sounds of popular music. Most of us don't even know their names. 20 Feet from Stardom (now streaming, Netflix) is fabulous for its music, interviews, and amazing concert and studio footage spanning several decades. But it's more than just eye candy for wannabe rockers and sentimental boomers; it also asks some big questions about fame, art, and giving credit where it's due. ELINOR JONES

Kraftwerk
This band is maybe more known for people knowing it had a huge influence on modern music than for people having actually listened to them. Kraftwerk deserves to be remembered as more than just the answer to some pop-culture trivia question, especially after this week, as one of its co-founders, Florian Schneider, died of cancer at the age of 73. Kraftwerk isn't just a influence on modern music, it's arguably one of the single most important influences, especially in the way it showed artists of the '70s (and '80s, and '90s, and '00s) how to manipulate electronic instruments to create some of the most impactful, lasting music ever composed. There are things bedroom producers are stumbling upon and swearing by to this day that were actually invented by Kraftwerk before your parents (and even possibly their parents) were born. Listen loudly, and (re-) learn.

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The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Fri May 8

Fri, 08 May 2020 15:00:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

The I, Anonymous Show
The long-running Portland Mercury column “I, Anonymous” is famous for asking readers to send in their most whacked-out rants and scandalous confessions—anonymously! In this special LIVE-STREAMED edition of The I, Anonymous Show, your host Kate Murphy will read some of the wildest and uncensored I, Anonymous submissions we've ever received. And even better, these secret (often very naughty) stories will be dissected and discussed by a panel of hilarious, nationally recognized comedians: Amy Miller, Sean Jordan, and Simon Gibson! So if you're looking for a night of side-splitting, jaw-dropping rants and confessions—don't miss this live-streamed edition of The I, Anonymous Show, tonight at 8 pm!

Shaolin vs. Wu Tang Livestream w/ Commentary from RZA and the Hollywood Theatre's Dan Halsted
Are you missing the Hollywood Theatre? Of course you are, you're a sane, rational human being who loves independent cinema and the sort of care in presentation that Dan Halsted and the Hollywood staff provides. Especially when they schedule outright kung fu classics like they are wont to do. Tonight (6:15 pm, $10) is a great opportunity to capture some of that magic in your living room as Dan teams up with the RZA (yes, that RZA. Bobby Digital, himself. Bong bong.) to deliver a live commentary over Shaolin vs. Wu Tang. You can ask questions to the both of them during the film as well, and speaking of which: This livestream is taken from a digital scan of Halsted's own 35mm print!

Mother's Day Brunch
The Nightwood's normal Mother's Day Brunch isn't possible for the obvious reasons, but that's not stopping Mother's Day from coming, and it's certainly not stopping brunch from being a thing, so for Mom's Day 2020, the Nightwood is serving up that classic brunch experience in to-go boxes that can be picked up curbside, or delivered to your spot on the day. The catch (and why you're reading about this on a Friday)? A proper Nightwood Mother's Day brunch for two ($55, children's portions avail. for add-on) takes time to prepare, and that means if you want to hook Mom up right, you need to think ahead, click here, and get your order in by 8 pm TODAY. Add-ons include bouquets, baked goods, and bottles of wine.

Mother's Day Meat
Maybe mom isn't feeling like a more traditional brunch experience this year. Nicky USA gets it. They're not about any kind of dainty pastel mom's day meals, no no: They want mom to savor a slab of meat. Finely seasoned, succulent, ready-to-be prepared meat, to be sure—but if you wanna kick off this socially distanced Mother's Day with a hearty shout of "Meat's back on the menu, mom!" then this special pre-made Mother's Day box—including five pounds of smoked bacon, four pounds of salami, a smoked duck breast, and CBD hemp infused bath salts (perfect for relaxing contentedly after such a meat-filled holiday) for $155, ready for pickup Fri, May 8th. Oh, wait - that's today! Better get that order in ASAP, then.

Mother's Day Pastries
Maybe she doesn't want a whole brunch, or a box of meat. Maybe she wants a brunch that is nothing but baked goods? No ham, no bacon, no eggs, no tea, just a big box of all-butter (!), hand-crafted baked goods from Grand Central Baking. Well, if you're thinking ahead (and you'd better be, this is your mother we're talking about) then put in an order today, schedule a pick-up time, and get those muffins or cupcakes or scones or cookies or all of 'em to your mom so she can spend a not-so-hasty day with her favorite tasty pastries.

Drag Queen Delivery
While some are scrambling to get their pastries delivered, Our House Portland is serving up looks, jokes, and fabulousness this Mother's Day weekend, with a whole DRAG SHOW being delivered to your door. Secure one of the limited $50 time slots for Sat-Sun May 9-10, and a small army of local queens including Bolivia Carmichaels, Summer Lynne Seasons, Honey Bea Hart, and Jenuwine Beaute will appear, lubricate the engagement with a bottle of wine, and then belt out a porch-side performance just for you and yours. Proceeds benefit the performers themselves, and Our House's general fund. Give the gift of doorfront drag this Mother's Day weekend, and help out Portland's amazing drag community while you're at it. Plus: wine! Hey!

Mother's Day Dinner&Dranks
Speaking of stylish imbibing: Mississippi Ave's Quaintrelle is here for your mom, and more specifically, here for the glass she's got in her hand, a glass that needs to never be empty on her day. What should go in that glass? Well, there's a wine window open, so that's one solution. But if you want Mother's Day to be fancy, you can order a dinner to be picked up, and add a COCKTAIL kit to it for $20, giving you everything (well... everything except the booze—but we have a handy list of curbside-friendly liquor stores RIGHT HERE for ya) you need to make some of Quaintrelle's best mixed drinks for mom on her day.

Dead to Me
Netflix's unique buddy-comedy-dramedy-suspense-thriller (with wine!) returns for another off-kilter season that, much like their breakout drama Ozark, is basically just a prime-time soap opera of the sort that used to rule network television way back in the days where network television itself ruled popular culture. Nothing that's happening in this domestic drama even remotely realistic, much less plausible, but the interplay between the characters, and the way they keep getting in each other's way, breaking shit, trying to fix it, failing, and then succeeding in spite of themselves anyway is pretty engrossing, and is especially so when its top-of-their-game Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini anchoring the show. Top off your goblet with some alcoholic grape juice and catch up with a binge of Dead to Me's first season before jumping into the new one, which premieres tonight.

Lady Bird
Watching Lady Bird (now streaming, Amazon Prime Video and Kanopy through MultCo Library) is kind of like reopening your high school yearbook for the first time in years, wincing and smiling in equal measure. Writer/director Greta Gerwig (in her feature debut) reworks the coming-of-age narrative with depth, nuance, and striking beauty. Throughout, Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) clashes with her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf), an overworked psychiatric nurse who’s struggling to support the family after her husband loses his job. Few films attempt to validate the trials of teenage girls, but Gerwig handles the McPhersons’ financial distress and Lady Bird’s miniature revolutions with equal seriousness. Gerwig’s directorial debut is sweet, tragic, and sentimental, which is exactly how a coming-of-age movie should be. CIARA DOLAN

The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead won about every award an author could possibly win after the publication of The Underground Railroad, an un-put-downable piece of historical science fiction that exceeded even its own extremely high expectations. He pulled in the MacArthur "Genius" Grant, the National Book Award, the Whiting Award, and the Pulitzer Prize—a feat so rare, we don't even have an EGOT-type acronym for it. And now he's become only the fourth writer in Pulitzer history to win the Prize for fiction twice, with his most recent novel, The Nickel Boys (avail in ebook and audiobook form at MultCo Library; Hardcover avail at Powells, $24.95), about a group of Black boys trying to survive a horrific reform school experience in Jim Crow-era Florida. If you haven't gotten a chance to read it yet, do yourself a favor and catch up! RICH SMITH

LeVar Burton Reads
While you're in a reading mood, we should probably remind you of this ongoing slice of gold: LeVar Burton is one of the only reasons Twitter is still worth visiting, and stuff like this is precisely why. Three days a week, he will livestream from his Twitter account, and read stories to you. Mondays at 9am will be for the kids, Wednesdays at 3pm will be for the young adults, and Fridays at 6pm (that's tonight!) will be for the grownups. If you miss it, though, don't sweat it: He's got a whole podcast dedicated to just this purpose, featuring hours upon hours of fine short stories delivered in his dulcet tones. Subscribe, and make your self-quarantine instantly 48% more bearable, at the least.

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Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Wed May 6

Wed, 06 May 2020 15:00:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

The Left Hand of Darkness
Need a book for this week's Silent Reading Party? How about an absolute classic from Ursula K. Le Guin? Not that you need an excuse to crack the spine on any of her works, but The Left Hand of Darkness (available in ebook and audiobook form at MultCo Library, physical copies here at Powell's) in particular has had lasting influence as one of the defining works of feminist literature. The novel tells the story of a Genly Ai, a future human explorer on an icy planet called Winter whose inhabitants are all gender-fluid. Where other Science Fiction writers at the time used the latest innovations in technology to imagine the future, Le Guin developed a Science Fiction of Anthropology (a discipline in part founded by her father, Alfred Kroeber) that rejects gender as essential to ordering society. The novel remains a cherished guiding star for many queer and trans youth today. EDWARD WOLCHER

Becoming
About a year ago, American treasure and cultural icon Michelle Obama came to the Moda Center as part of her national tour promoting her book Becoming. She covered key events in her life from career to motherhood, and discussed the lessons learned from becoming the first Black woman to serve as First Lady of the United States. This documentary, premiering on Netflix today (from the Obamas' production company Higher Ground, following up their acclaimed American Factory) is "an intimate documentary" for those who were able to attend last year's show, and for us broke folk who only got as close as catching a glimpse of the Secret Service cavalcade that drove through town. Not sure how “intimate” this “conversation” can get, but I also don’t doubt Michelle’s ability to surpass all expectations. JENNI MOORE

The The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen Variety Show
If you're one of many Bon Appétit stans, you know that the magazine's Test Kitchen crew is quarantined like the rest of us. They've been recording themselves in their home kitchens to keep the BA YouTube channel full of serotonin-boosting content, and this culminated in their biggest sheltered-in-place experiment thus far: A live variety show, loaded up with cooking challenges, catchphrases (mostly from Brad), and more fun surprises. If you missed it live last Friday, don't sweat it—it's archived on their YouTube channel, and you can watch along like you were there, and whatever donations you kick down after the fact will go towards World Central Kitchen's COVID-19 relief project, which aims to provide meals to those in need, put restaurants back to work, and feed frontline healthcare workers.

Live Wire! Radio House Party
The only way this could be even more perfect is if Kid 'n' Play were actually hosting Portland's world-famous live 'n' local public radio variety show. That might still happen, who knows, but in the latest installment of this socially-distanced version of Live Wire, the tried and true (and charming-as-hell) team of Luke Burbank and Elena Passarello welcome Cameron Esposito, who talks about the shift from the stage to streaming as a stand-up using Zoom; @RateMySkypeRoom account creator Claude Taylor, who will be rating Luke's home studio and presumably sparing no mercies while doing so; and The Lone Bellow, performing a new song created while quarantined!

Chicano Batman
If there were an award for music that’s “the best reminder to give your Mexican dad a phone call,” or one that makes you “most nostalgic for a time you never knew,” Chicano Batman would definitely win both. The Los Angeles-based quartet smoothly integrates two wistful genres: the romantic ’60s psychedelia so many brown kids grew up listening to on Saturday mornings, and the inescapably sun-soaked sound of Southern Californian indie. And nobody rocks the soulfulness of the organ like Chicano Batman. Their new album, Invisible People hit streaming last Friday—get a late pass and listen below. GUADALUPE TRIANA

The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Wed, April 29

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 17:00:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Telling Lies
In the early days of gaming there were a lot of attempts to emphasize the "video" part by trying to make movies playable. In the '80s and '90s, this meant janky exercises in laserdisc frustration (Dragon's Lair), CD-ROM pixelation, and failed titillation (Night Trap). By 2020 they had figured out how to make movies actually playable (the Black Mirror movie Bandersnatch being a good example) and one of the best entries in this genre is Telling Lies, a game that creator Sam Barlow calls a "desktop thriller," starring YOU as a former FBI agent who is going through two years of electronic surveillance on four suspects, (played by Logan Marshall-Green, Kerry Bishé, Alexandra Shipp, and Angela Sarafyan). Since the conversations are all one-sided, you have to piece together who is talking to who, and when, and then you have to figure out how much of what they're saying is true, and solve the ever-expanding mystery sprawling out in front of you. The highly-engrossing game debuted on PC in August 2019, but only just yesterday became available on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch for $19.99.

Halt and Catch Fire
As it turns out, Telling Lies isn't the first bit of extraordinary entertainment focused on the advancement of video gaming that Kerry Bishé has been involved in. She was also one of the leads (although you wouldn't know this was the case in season one) of Halt and Catch Fire, an AMC drama that found a second life on Netflix. It had a lot of things going against it in that first season: It was being sold as as Mad Men-esque drama about a brash anti-hero in the Don Draper mold, and that's... kind of what it actually was at first, but with a much clunkier title, and a much less attractive milieu (the personal computing industry in the early '80s vs. the advertising industry of the '60s). But as the first season came to a close, its showrunners realized what the show needed to be was the story of two very complicated women fighting themselves and a closed-minded industry to reinvent basically everything they ever interacted with, and make it better for everyone. Halt began as a cynical look at damaged men laying waste to the '80s, and ended as possibly the most human, empathetic, and rewarding drama that AMC has ever produced. It might sound hyperbolic, but the four seasons that make up Halt and Catch Fire? It's a journey, and one absolutely worth taking.

Ozark
Another show that began life as sort of a pale (pale-er) imitation of a prestige AMC program? This current mainstay in the Netflix top-10. Yes, Ozark really isn't much more than "The Arrested Development guy does Breaking Bad"—at first. But the show slowly becomes something more than an "unassuming family becomes cog in a crime empire" story. A huge part of its appeal is due to the "Arrested Development" guy; not his work in front of the camera, but behind it. Jason Bateman the director is so, so much more interesting than Jason Bateman the money-laundering anti-hero (Julia Garner and Laura Linney are the real stars of the show), and as Ozark starts lifting whole chunks from the backwoods-gangster epic Justified, Bateman begins applying a horror-film sheen to the proceedings that fits the show's off-kilter strengths perfectly. It's weird to say that the star of Teen Wolf Too is this good at working in John Carpenter's wheelhouse, but these are strange times, indeed.

Dinosaur Jr. at Pickathon
And speaking of cool things happening in the woods, Pickathon's "Concert a Day" series isn't just trucking along fantastically, but it's presenting an extra-special treat for today: Dinosaur Jr's full set from the Mt. Hood stage in 2017. Pickathon themselves describe the sound they made back then as a "grungy, jangly, mesozoic wall of sound" that "went down in the annals of Pickathon history," so if they're offering you an opportunity toliterally relive that day in history for free, why the hell would you pass that up?

Silent Reading Party
A lot of people are taking the opportunity to turn the online version of The Stranger's super-successful words 'n' vibes experience into a weekly online destination, a respite from (waves hands exasperatedly at basically everything) and an opportunity to simply... slow up, sit down, and just listen to live piano music while sinking into a good book. If you haven't tried it out yet, tonight's the night, and we'll see you at 6pm. If you have tried it out before? Welcome back. It's a damn nice oasis of low-key bliss, isn't it?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
If you're looking for a book to read while you settle in for that reading party, why not try Rebecca Skloot's award-winning detective story/science story/true-life-mystery The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (link goes to the Multnomah County library's ebook). Skloot creates a fascinating narrative out of the story of the first ever cell line to survive indefinitely in culture, and deftly blends scientific history with the life of the Black woman who (unknowingly) provided the cells and her family's (mis)treatment by the scientific community. From there, Skloot reaches out to address topics in the history of tissue research, medical ethics, and exploitation of research subjects—especially African Americans.

The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Mon April 27

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 16:00:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Mondays with Me: Read-along with Michelle Obama
Maybe this isn't so much for you as it is any little kids you have tear-assing around the house as we head deep into month two of quarantine. But who cares? It's Michelle Obama volunteering to help those young'uns practice their reading, and also giving you a little (but much needed) break. This happens every Monday on the PBSKids YouTube at 9am through May 11th. Treasure it —it's not often a real First Lady is going to read to your rugrats, so take advantage while you can.

Never Have I Ever
Mindy Kaling's follow-up to The Mindy Project and the under-seen and under-appreciated Late Night is a new romantic comedy for Netflix named after a classic teen game that very often led to awkward, endearing, cringy, and complicated truths being unearthed. The show absolutely lives up to that promise (and partially explains why it is kids keep playing this mortifying game), centering on a high school sophomore named Devi, still getting over the sudden death of her father, her own paralysis, and less-heavy-but-no-less-important dilemmas like "thick arm hair,""Can I get Paxton the hot jock to like me," and "am I doing kegels right."Never Have I Ever doesn't go for the big joke anywhere near as often as Kaling's previous projects, but what it loses in comedic audacity, it makes up for with an abundance of heart.

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2
In 2020, video games are where music festivals happen. In 1981, video games were basically Pac-Man and that was about it. Well, Pac-Man's come quite a long way. Maybe not "virtual concert," long, but definitely "oh wow this is a rave now" long, as the "Championship Edition" series of Pac-Man games revived and revitalized Pac-Man for the 21st century by changing the gameplay up, adding some legitimately good EDM on the soundtrack, and turning the mazes into mind-melting kaleidoscopes of light and color. And now you can own and play Pac-Man: Championship Edition 2 for free on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. You have until May 10 to download the game, but once you do? Like T La Rock once said, it's yours.

Avengers: Endgame Watch Party and Commentary with the Russo Bros.
The Community directors made a superhero movie last summer, and it turns out it was pretty good, and people liked watching it a lot. Well, since everyone's inside all day all the time now, and they saw that someone made a viral video of a WWE crowd watching their movie about Hammer-Man, Shiny-Pants, and America's Ass, they decided they're going to get in on this big ol' watch party thing with a running commentary track that starts on Instagram at 4pm, moves to Twitter at 5pm, and covers every minute of their three-hour-long epic conclusion to ~~the Marvel Cinematic Universe~~blockbuster cinema for the time being.

Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal
The man responsible for some of the finest animation TV has ever seen (Samurai Jack, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, Star Wars: Clone Wars) returned to Adult Swim in 2019 with a goddamn vengeance. Primal is a wordless five-part story about a man and his dog, wherein the man is a prehistoric survivor of a horrific dinosaur attack that wiped out his family in three bites, and the dog is a Tyrannosaur who also lost her family in a similar fashion. The two team up out of necessity, and become a makeshift family of their own... while fighting a river of giant snakes, mountain-dwelling giant spiders, literal bat-men, and potion-slurping super-apes. It's probably the best action movie since Mad Max: Fury Road, and it's now available both on Adult Swim and ad-free via Hulu (if you have Hulu w/ Live TV).

Nardwuar the Human Serviette
DID YOU KNOW: The single best celebrity interviewer of all time was once the frontman for a "goof-punk" band from Vancouver BC called The Evaporators? He used to bounce his weird ass up and down the Pacific Northwest wrecking venue after venue, and it was good. But Narduwar had not yet had his "becoming," and only after unlocking his inner Barbara Walters did he ascend to pop-culture godhood. Millions have lost whole days to just clicking through his YouTube channel and marveling at his conversations with artists including Odd Future, Tommy Chong, Jay-Z, Joan Jett, and more—and that was before we were all on lockdown. Go on, fill your head with some of the best content the wonderful world of online can provide, doot doola doot doo.

Etta James, Live from San Francisco
When people start throwing around the phrase “greatest singer of all time,” it’s usually Aretha who gets anointed, and rightfully so—but some days it’s clear that Etta deserves the mantle. For example, I keep coming back to Live from San Francisco, taken from a small club show she performed in 1981 at the second, short-lived incarnation of the Boarding House. And I can’t believe I’m writing this, but her cover of “Take It to the Limit”—a song originally done by the godforsaken Eagles, for crying out loud—is nothing short of astonishing. NED LANNAMANN

The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Sun April 26

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 17:00:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Sign O' The Times
Last Tuesday, CBS aired a special on the fourth anniversary of Prince's death, "The GRAMMY Salute to Prince," a concert taped in January, hosted by Maya Rudolph, and featuring a whole mess of accomplished artists putting their spin on the Purple Majesty's most memorable songs. I'm sure it was good, and many feelings were caught over the course of the concert—that's just how his music works. But no matter how great the cover, there's never been a time I've wanted to hear someone else doing a Prince song when I could hear PRINCE doing it. And so: If you're feeling like watching a Prince concert, (and that's a feeling worth having literally every day of the week) I suggest loading up Sign o' the Times on Amazon Prime. Is it the best concert film ever made? That can be argued, but it definitely belongs in any conversation on the topic. Is it a better movie than Purple Rain? Unquestionably. Will it make you feel alive and uplifted within minutes? Most definitely.
(Now Available, Prime Video)

The Beautiful Ones
Hey, while you're feeling all purple and gold on this Sunday morning, why not seek out the autobiography Prince was working on with author Dan Piepenbring before his untimely, unfortunate, and unfair death. The Beautiful Ones is an amazing look into Prince's life before he was PRINCE, starting in his early childhood and ending with his 11-page film treatment for Purple Rain. The print version features never-before-seen photos next to handwritten lyrics, scrapbooked notes, and recollections of his personal history. The Audiobook takes many of those anecdotes, and has Esperanza Spalding and Adepero Oduye read them aloud.
(Now Available, ebook and audiobook, MultCo Library w/ Card; Hardcover, Powell's.com, $30)

The Last Dance
The ESPN 10-part documentary returns with another set of back-to-back chapters in the engrossing drama of the Chicago Bulls' final championship season. After establishing the series' main villain in episode one (Bulls GM Jerry Krause, who basically was to the team what Jerry Heller was to N.W.A.), and revealing just how dirty the team did Scottie Pippen in episode two, episodes three and four will focus on one of the Bulls' worst mini-bosses(the Bad Boys-era Detroit Pistons) and the unexpected hero who used to play for them (Dennis Rodman). Still sort of shocked and titillated at hearing a cigar-smoking, cognac-sipping Michael Jordan drop f-bombs like he dropped three-pointers on the Blazers? There's more where that came from, tonight!
(Sun April 26, 8pm, ESPN and ESPN.com)

Scrubs
Self-quarantine has led a lot of people to binge-watching their favorite televisual comfort foods, which translates to a ton of Parks and Recreation, The Office, Cheers, etc. But if you haven't revisited Scrubs—or worse, have never visited it at all—the last weekend of April is as good a time as any to head back to Sacred Heart. Initially it was written off as a sort of spoof of ER and Chicago Hope, but ended up becoming just as good as those shows, if not better, at essaying what life is really like when you work at a hospital. Scrubs combined whimsy, slapstick, and legitimate drama like nothing else during its on-air run, and if you are jumping in fresh, you should probably subscribe to the Fake Doctors, Real Friends podcast, an episode-by-episode guide to the show hosted by its stars, Zach Braff (Dr John J.D. Dorian) and Donald Faison (Dr. Turk Turkleton, lip-sync star and keeper of silverware in the pancake drawer, whuh-thuuu)
(Now Streaming, Hulu; Fake Doctors, Real Friends now available, iHeart, Spotify, Apple Podcasts)

Under One Roof Music Festival: A Benefit for North Carolina Artists
You look at the lineup for this festival and... damn, North Carolina has turned out a lot of musical talent over the years, and that talent is getting together to help raise funds for the North Carolina Arts Foundation. Performers include Ben Folds, Petey Pablo, the Steep Canyon Rangers, Anthony Hamilton, Chatham County Line, 9th Wonder, and more.
(Sun April 26, 5 pm)

Cowboy Bebop
Did you forget that this landmark series, the first anime to be broadcast on Adult Swim way back in 2001, is just available, for free, on AdultSwim.com? That this visually stunning, musically amazing testament to style and sneakily substantial storytelling is just sitting there, waiting for you to (re)discover it with limited commercial interruption on Tubi? Did you like Firefly? Is Guardians of the Galaxy your favorite Marvel movie series? Have you ever sat around and wondered "Man, what if Elmore Leonard wrote a sci-fi series about bounty hunters?"That's this show! Comedy! Drama! Guns! Corgis! Get everybody and the stuff together already, and let's jam.
(Now Streaming, free w/ ads, Tubi, AdultSwim.com; commercial-free, Hulu, YouTube TV)

Restore Some Old Furniture
Okay, maybe you won't be heading out to your garage (if you even have one), getting all coverall'd up and sawing/sanding/lacquering old furniture until it's shiny and new again. But you can watch someone do just that on YouTube all day, and marvel at how goddamn relaxing it is. It's not technically ASMR-type-stuff, but the sounds of the sanding and re-finishing, and the NPR-esque voiceover describing what's happening and why certainly pushes a lot of the same buttons. Dashner Design & Restoration is a Minneapolis-based vintage furniture company, and their YouTube channel steps viewers through their efforts in taking thrift store finds and turning them into vintage furniture gold. There's some how-to knowledge in here too, but even if you never have—or never will—pick up a single scrap of sandpaper, these videos are a winning combination of soothing and fascinating, perfect for a lazy Sunday.
(Now Streaming, YouTube)

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The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: EARTH DAY Edition

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 17:30:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Earth Day Live
So of course, in this bizarre dystopian timeline we got shunted into somewhere around 2016, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day would be happening in the middle of a global pandemic, but: This might be the most important Earth Day of the last five decades, and that's why the 2020 version isn't just one day of livestreaming, but three, featuring a nonstop parade of artists, activists, scientists, and thought leaders, including Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Ndaba Mandela, Talib Kweli, Stacey Abrams, Patricia Arquette, Aimee Mann and Ted Leo, and many more. Day One is focused on community building and storytelling, Day Two is about reprogramming the economy entirely (because COVID-19 isn't going to let anything go back to "the way it was.") and Day Three will take a look at how best to affect political change through the youth.
(Wed-Fri, April 22-24, free, all ages)

Jane Goodall: The Hope
A really good way to celebrate Earth Day and one of the most important women to ever live is to check out this new documentary about author, advocate, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace Dame Jane Goodall, focused not just on her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees, but on the hope she's inspired in millions of environmentalists, and the hopes she has for our future.
(Wed April 22, Disney+, NatGeo)

Elephant
You can also get your nature documentary needs met while satiating your British Royal thirst at the same time with Elephant on Disney+, not to be confused with Elephant by Gus Van Sant (yikes!), about a family of elephants moving out of a desert because deserts suck to live in. So where does that "royal" aspect come in? Meghan Markle narrates the whole thing! And apparently there's a part where a baby elephant "goes on a farting spree" and she narrates that, too! Bet you didn't think Earth Day 2020 was going to include adorable adventures in elephant flatulence, did you? Watch it before Disney digitally edits actual rainbows into the scene without telling anybody. You know. For the kids!
(Now Streaming, Disney+)

The Stranger Presents: Silent Reading Party
Our big sister The Stranger has a Silent Reading Party so popular in Seattle that every seat is taken and there’s a line out the door before the party even starts. But now, in adapting to these self-quarantined times, not only is the party weekly, but you can attend from anywhere in the world. Make yourself a snack, pour yourself a drink, and read whatever you feel like reading silently, to yourself, as resident musician Paul Moore plays exquisitely soft piano music for you and everyone else in the party—everything from Erik Satie to Radiohead to Duke Ellington. A perfect way to make a solo night at home feel a little less lonely, it’s also great for couples or families who want an excuse to turn off the TV and get some reading done.
(Wed April 22, 6 pm, $5-20)

Miss Americana
A different sort of look at feminism in America, set 40 years after the events in Mrs. America and filtered through the lens of one of the world's biggest pop stars; a woman who got her start as a child-country-star and then had to figure out how to still be herself, while also trying to be what millions of fans are projecting onto her. And then you add that whole Kim and Kanye complication to the mix, and oh yeah, one of the most repugnant, disgusting, and unqualified men in American history got elected president, too, forcing her to reexamine her own adherence to apolitical stances. Miss Americana isn't quite as warts 'n' all as many viewers might like, but it's still an enlightening look at the life of one of our most popular singer/songwriters.
Now Streaming, Netflix, $8.99 per month, free trial here

Mrs. America
If you’ve set a goal to better yourself and learn new things during this period of social distancing, then I can’t think of a more entertaining way to do so than by watching Mrs. America. The nine-episode series tells the story of the second-wave feminists who tried to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the 1970s—and the anti-feminist women who were ultimately successful in stopping them. Cate Blanchett plays toxic conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly with equal parts humanity and honesty, without veering into tired sympathetic antihero territory. Rose Byrne is criminally fun to watch in Gloria Steinem drag, and Uzo Aduba sinks her teeth into the tension of being first female presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm, caught between the Black rights and women’s liberation movements—and ultimately screwed by both. Beyond being enjoyable as hell to watch (I burned through the first three episodes after they dropped on Wednesday), Mrs. America also serves as an edifying lesson in 1970s American politics. It says something truly shameful about our society that I learned more about the dynamics of Chisholm’s campaign in an hour of television than I did in any K-12 or college class, but oh well, at least I spent an entire school year learning about the Oregon Trail!
(Wed, April 22, Hulu, $5.99 per month, free trial here)BLAIR STENVICK

The Whiskey Sour Happy Hour with Ed Helms & the Bluegrass Situation
Steve Martin isn't the only funnyman with an affinity for bluegrass music. Ed Helms has been running "The Whiskey Sour Radio Hour" out of Largo in LA for a goodish spell now, combining the sounds of Americana with comedy and interviews, and now he's going to translate that experience to the quarantine livestream era, helping benefit MusiCares and Direct Relief, and welcoming some of their favorite musical artists to their virtual stage, starting with Lee Ann Womack, Billy Strings, and proceeding from there.
(Wed April 22, 8 pm, YouTube, Facebook, free)

Blossom
Blossom—AKA Keisha Chiddick—makes dreamy, mellow, and ethereal neo-soul. Her sultry vocals are particularly soft and gorgeous, wandering through twinkling, instrument-heavy production to eventually float in a space of exquisite self-reflection. Listening to it is like seeing a beautiful sunrise after a long night. JENNI MOORE
Maybe [LP] by Blossom

The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Tues April 21

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 17:35:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Middleditch & Schwartz
Get ready for an evening of wild-yet-intimate improv comedy with Jean Ralphio from Parks and Recreation and Richard Hendricks from Silicon Valley—except they won’t be playing those characters because that was TV and this is real life. IRL, Ben Schwartz and Thomas Middleditch are maybe even funnier than their fictional counterparts! These two mumbly, bumbly comic geniuses share a hilarious history of playing off one another via longform improv and tender full-body spooning.
(Tues, April 21, Netflix, $8.99 per month, free trial here)SUZETTE SMITH

Rebecca Solnit
Six years after Rebecca Solnit added a few new words to the lexicon of sexist experience in her smash-hit essay collection Men Explain Things to Me, the longtime writer and activist is out with a new memoir about her formative years in San Francisco. In Recollections of My Non-Existence, Solnit gives the Beats the drubbing she felt she couldn't give them back in the day, tells the stories of the people and places that inspired her writings, and compares the violence women faced then to the violence they still face today.
(Now Available, ebook and audiobook, MultCo Library w/ card; Hardcover, Powell's.com, $26)RICH SMITH

Fetch the Bolt Cutters
You still listening to that new Fiona Apple that came out on Friday? Good. Keep listening to it. If you haven't listened to it yet, there's no time like the present, really. As author Bess Kalb best put it: "Fiona Apple was waiting for the entire world to descend into restless melancholic rage and then once we all started pacing our kitchens in our underwear in the middle of the night she was like, “You’re ready.” So... yeah. You're ready. Go ahead and just hit the "loop" button on whatever player you've got it cue'd up on now, too.
(Now Available, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, etc.)

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me
Speaking of the New Yorker's Bess Kalb, her ability to tweet good is dwarfed by her ability to memoir, as Nobody Will Tell You This But Me aptly, hilariously, and poignantly shows. A book that Kalb built from every voicemail and text message her grandmother Bobby ever left her, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me charts the physical and emotional journeys that four generations of women went through—including escaping pogroms in 1880 and fighting the power in the 1970s—to arrive at Bess, who leaned on her grandmother for support and wisdom when she moved to Los Angeles to make people laugh, and to make her dreams come true.
(Now Available, ebook and audiobook, MultCo Library w/ Card; Hardcover, Powell's.com, $25.95)

Horizon Zero Dawn
As the self-quarantine continues and the hours stack up, a lot of people are finally putting a sizable dent in their "I've been meaning to play that" list; and if you haven't gotten around to Horizon Zero Dawn just yet, you are in for one of the best gaming experiences of the last five years, and one that justified the purchase of a PS4 for millions of people. A beautiful and satisfying blend of classics like Metroid Prime, Monster Hunter, and The Legend of Zelda, Horizon is set in a post-apocalyptic ~~wasteland~~verdant wilderness where machine animals roam the earth, and humankind has gone back to its tribal, pre-technological existence. You play as Aloy, a rebellious daughter discovering the truth about herself and the world she was born into. The developers use a gentle hand on the story, the voice acting is just right, and the gameplay? So good.. Because it's just over three-years-old, it's cheap to pick up new—and if you did get it new back then, it'll probably feel that way when you revisit it now.
(Now Available, PlayStation Store, $19.99)

Go Thrifting with Princess Nokia
New York-based Boricua rapper Princess Nokia’s studio debut 1992 Deluxe is beyond impressive: With her malleable flows and tones, Nokia’s gritty hip-hop is made refreshing by its progressive, empowering lyrics. Identifying as a bi-sexual “Tomboy,” skater, and feminist, Nokia melds her influences of gothic punk and hip-hop while honoring her Afro-Latina heritage and celebrating femmes of color. On YouTube, her highlights include various insightful Q&As, footage from her visceral live shows, and an endless stream of visuals that’ll turn you into an instant Stan. JENNI MOORE

The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Sun April 19

Sun, 19 Apr 2020 16:59:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

Oregon Symphony Gala
The Oregon Symphony perseveres in the face of the coronavirus crisis by ensuring their 2020 Gala still goes on—just in a more online, intimate manner than the normal Schnitz-based show might otherwise have been. Local diva Storm Large will sing while backed by a virtual performance from the Symphony, and while "attendance" is free, any donation you can give to the Symphony will be very, very much appreciated. They'd like to be able to return, someday, to filling the Schnitz with the finest orchestral sounds being made in the whole country, and that mission starts here, with them turning your living room into the setting for their big fundraising gala.
(Sun April 19, 7 pm, free, all ages)

The Last Dance
Basketball heads have been fiending for something to scratch that hoops itch, to get a fix for that b-ball jones, and the NBA 2K tourney was... not that. Hopefully they up the production values a little on the next one. But ESPN might finally have the hookup: Their highly-anticipated 10-part documentary series on the final season of the Chicago Bulls dynasty begins with the first two episodes tonight, and continues with back-to-back hour-long episodes every Sunday until the documentary is done and behind us like Bryon Russell watching that jumper fall from the sky.
(Sun April 19, 8 pm, ESPN and ESPN.com)

Little Women
I loved Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird so much that I went into Little Women with trepidation. Making a follow-up to a movie everyone loved is tricky! And every hater on my block asked why we needed another Little Women movie when the 1995 version is “perfectly fine” and “has Winona Ryder in it.” The answer: You don’t know how good you can have it! You don’t know how good Little Women can be, you poor fools! Gerwig’s Little Women is Romance-era-oil-painting gorgeous, but it’s also realistic, thanks to the performances of the film’s star-studded cast of March sisters: Saoirse Ronan as Jo, Emma Watson as Meg, Florence Pugh as Amy, and Eliza Scanlen as Beth. We see the Marches as we see many families: A force bursting into a room. Laura Dern—for the first time in cinematic history—gives the girls’ mother a full personality. And when the girls’ father turned out to be universally beloved Bob Odenkirk (!) my friend straight-up punched me in the arm because she was already crying and couldn’t talk.
(Now available, iTunes, Prime Video, Google Play, Vudu, $5.99 rental, $14.99 purchase)SUZETTE SMITH

SXSW Pilot Season
South By Southwest is slowly but surely making its way out to the people even though the massive arts festival was one of the first to be severely affected by the coronavirus crisis. This weekend is the first to feature SXSW's showcase for up-and-coming makers of television, sharing pilot episodes for programmers to hopefully pick up and turn into successful series. The shows are available for free on Vimeo, and include an interesting blend of documentaries and situational comedies. Click here for a full list of participating shows.
(Now Available, Vimeo.com, free)

Homecoming
Usually, podcasts spring out of TV shows, like the aforementioned Way Down in the Hole, focused on The Wire, for example. But sometimes, that creative pipeline flows in the opposite direction. One of the first podcasts to become a TV show is also one of the best shows in the last five years, thanks to showrunner and director Sam Esmail, who took almost every lesson he learned while making Mr. Robot for USA and applied it to his 2018 adaptation of Homecoming, Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg's psychological mystery about a soldier returned from war and trying to transition to civilian life. Esmail plays with sound, with aspect ratio, with editing, and with genre expectations to create a thriller that evokes the best of '70s paranoid cinema (The Parallax View, The Conversation) while feeling so new that it might take another two-or-three years for TV to catch up with it. (Oh yeah, and Julia Roberts, Bobby Cannavale, and Stephan James are in it.)

(Now Available, Amazon Prime Video)

Control
If you enjoy the aesthetics of Homecoming but were like "You know what would be awesome? If this show were about 300% more cheesy, and had super-weird guns you could shoot at freaky floating possessed bad guys," guess what, there's a video game for that! It's called Control, and is maybe the most strikingly art-directed third-person shooter of the current generation. It's storytelling is overheated, glassy-eyed hokum most of the time, aiming for David Lynch and winding up a lot closer to Neil Breen; but the way it looks, the way it moves, and the way it plays is more than enough to make up for that shortcoming. And honestly, if you're familiar with AAA gaming, you're already well-practiced in giving that sort of shit a pass anyway, so you'll be all set to seriously enjoy the dreamlike fun Control offers up.
(Now Available, PS4 Deluxe Edition $47.99; Xbox One $59.99)

Homecoming
This is probably the Homecoming you thought we were recommending earlier. For real, just put this on once a weekend anyway, because you could watch it every Sunday, like it was morning service, from here until a vaccine finally gets produced, and the miracle of how Bey pulled this off live, twice, without a single damn flaw even remotely spottable by electron microscope, will still be beautifully unfathomable.

The Glass Hotel
In this new, time-hopping novel by the author of the National Book Award-nominated Station Eleven (which you probably shouldn't read in the middle of a quarantine due to global pandemic) a woman disappears off a container ship, her husband tries to float a Ponzi scheme, and her brother, an aspiring musician, copes with a drug problem. The plot is very difficult to summarize, actually, but that's part of the fun.
(Now Available, ebook and audiobook at MultCo Library w/ card; hardcover, Powell's.com, $26.95)JOULE ZELMAN

Virtual Sunday Bingo!
You know how this works: Same good ol' Bingo fun you remember from the last time you hit the Siren and daubed (and dabbed, who knows) to your hearts content, or from the days when nicotine-stained Bingo halls dotted the landscape. But this time, it's all happening online, hosted by Erin Jean O'Regan and Jed Arkley. Prizes include Siren T-shirts, tickets to shows when the big re-opening finally happens, homemade cloth face masks, and of course, cash prizes.
(Sun April 19, 11 am, Zoom, $5-18)

Carly Rae Jepsen
Of all the things Mercury Editor in Chief Wm. Stephen Humphrey will not ever forgive the coronavirus for, ranking pretty high up there is the fact its proliferation led to the cancellation of the April 16 concert Ms. Jepsen was set to perform at the Roseland. If you seek consolation, as he does, try doing what he'll be doing this weekend: playing her latest LP Dedicated at top volume while losing a good three-to-four pounds from dancing and singing along the whole time.

The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Sat April 18

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 17:01:00 GMT

by Mercury Staff

One World: Together at Home
Lady Gaga helped curate this mass-gathering of all-star entertainers, and will headline it herself, which means its likely to be the biggest, boldest, and most interesting of all the fundraisers created to both celebrate and support frontline health care workers. It's already raised over $35 million for relief efforts around the world, and performers putting in work for the cause will include Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Idris and Sabrina Elba, Kerry Washington, Paul McCartney, Eddie Vedder, Alanis Morrissette, and many more, all hoping to convince you to pitch in a little bit more if you can. Hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and that one guy who giggled through every Saturday Night Live sketch he was ever on.
(Sat April 18, 5 pm, ABC, NBC, CBS, iHeart Media, free, all ages)

The Mystery Box Show
The coronavirus has us all cooped up indoors, but a really good true-sex tale can set you free, and that's why The Mystery Box Show is taking their long-running, successful, sex-positive, local storytelling show to YouTube for the night, with performances from Esther Godoy, Kate Mura, Dolly Dagger, and Reba Sparrow. The stream isn't behind any paywalls either, but if you're feeling generous, there are donation and Patreon links to click while you watch. A huge part of livestreaming's appeal is just how intimate any given show can be, and you'd better believe things are going to get intimate inside the Mystery Box tonight.
(Sat April 18, 6:30 pm, YouTube, free)

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection and Journey
People have been relying on their video game consoles to keep them entertained since the shutdown started, and Sony is leaning into that with their latest overture to Playstation owners: FREE GAMES! Now, because self-identified "gamers" are great at taking awesome things and making them vaguely shitty, let's get this out of the way: All four games being given away—the three Uncharted games in the Nathan Drake Collection and Journey—are old. So old they initially came out on the PS3. And if you've ever subscribed to PS Plus, they've both already been given away as part of that subscription service. BUT: These are versions specifically remastered for PS4 so they look, sound, and play better; and these free versions aren't free on the condition you maintain a paid online subscription. They're just free. Most importantly, they're four of the best games Sony has ever published. It's the gaming equivalent of Disney just up and deciding to give away the first three Indiana Jones movies and then throwing in Fantasia on top of that.
(Now Available, PlayStation Store, free)

Robin Hood
Hey, speaking of Disney, they made news last week for announcing yet another remake of a classic animated film. Thanks to the confusing-and-misleading way they made and marketed The Lion King (it was never "live action" but they sure as hell milked that artificial distinction for all it was worth) people responded to the news that 1973's Robin Hood would soon have a similar remake, with a combination of bemusement and discomfort. Which is... not unlike watching the original animated movie, honestly! The wholesome, family-friendly adaptation of the classic myth that also became ground zero for at least three of your current biggest fetishes, Robin Hood is bizarre-but-charming in a specfically '70s way. It's laid-back and rumpled up, like Lt. Columbo animated it himself, and tells a very British story, but with a lot of southern-fried voice acting and the impressively catchy music of country-folk singer Roger Miller. None of these elements should work together at all, and yet, the second that lute-playing rooster starts whistling? Pure happiness.
(Now Available, Disney+, $6.99 per month, free trial here)

Into the Spider-Verse
Social media got itself in a weird tizzy arguing over superhero movies again last week, spending close to 48 straight hours "debating" which of the 33 or so Spider-Man movies is actually "the best one." Why it took any longer than the second someone tweeted Into the Spider-Verse as an answer, who knows—but that's the correct answer, and it's not even close. Into the Spider-Verse, a heartfelt family film literally bursting with pure imagination and exemplary craft, isn't just the best Spider-Man film ever made (sorry, Spider-Man 2, you had a great run) but is arguably the example by which every other superhero adaptation should be measured. Watch it if you haven't before, then rewatch it and know the truth.
(Now Available, Netflix, $8.99 per month, free trial here)

Batcave Dance Party w/ DJ Anjali & the Incredible Kid
Known for fusing heart-quaking electronic with bhangra—a genre with roots in the traditional folk music of the northern Indian state of Punjab—and the soundtracks of Bollywood films, DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid’s dance floor sites are sweaty, glorious chaos, and now those sites include your house, thanks to their livestreams on Twitch.

(Sat April 18, 8 pm, Twitch.tv, free)

In the Lateness of the World
Carolyn Forché is one of the first and best practitioners of "the poetry of witness," a school of poets who use the form to record memories of war, famine, injustice, and every other rotten product of raw nature or human ambition. For the last 17 years, readers have had to content themselves with Forché's nonfiction, her translations, her anthologies, and her scholarship on the El Salvadoran peasant movement. But now she's finally out with In the Lateness of the World, a new collection of post-apocalyptic poems shot through with rays of hope. Sort of like Pound's Cantos filmed by Steven Spielberg with a little Jorie Graham thrown in there.
(Now Available, ebook, MultCo Library w/ card; hardcover, Powell's.com, $24; audiobook, Audible.com, $14)RICH SMITH

Fiona Apple
This weekend is a big one if you're a Fiona Apple fan, because it's the weekend she releases her first album in seven years, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, the percussion-heavy follow-up to 2012's The Idler Wheel, an almost uncomfortably vulnerable look inside the singer/songwriter's soul. Apple spoke at length about the album (and the eye-opening stories and feelings that went into its creation) with the New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum, and that long-read is a must-read preamble to an album described by co-producer Sebastian Steinberg (formerly of Soul Coughing) as "raw and unslick. She's not 17, she's 40, and she's got no reason not to do exactly as she wants."