Another week, another scintillatingly entertaining and devastatingly insightful arts section.

VISUAL ARTS:

Matt Stangel interviews local sculptor Meredith Dittmar about her kid-oriented show at Black Wagon, and why Portland won't be seeing any of her more ambitious new work anytime soon.

BOOKS:

I review two books that can rightly be categorized as "memoir-ish": Ariel Gore's new book Bluebird takes on the subject of female happiness, and I lose five feminist bonus points for not particularly liking it; and Nick Flynn considers parenthood in the age of state-sanctioned torture in The Ticking is the Bomb, which I found considerably more insightful and relatable than Gore's book (The Ticking is the Biological Clock was Flynn's alternate title*).

THEATER:

Portland Playhouse's Willow Jade, about a couple of D&D-playing nerds and their dysfunctional relationships with the (admittedly two-dimensional) women around them. It's a really goofy, funny show, and I liked it quite a bit; it's currently running as part of the Fertile Ground festival, but Portland Playhouse just announced a two-week extension, through Feb 14.

*No it wasn't.