• More than 50 years ago, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his nephew about surviving as a black man in America. Today, that conversation—about identity, systemic violence against people of color, and America's construction of race—is continued by Ta-Nehisi Coates in Between the World and Me, a booklength letter to his son. "It is an intimate and candid letter, written by a black father to his teenage son, in a society where blacks are killed with such regularity and impunity that people need to form a movement and wear t-shirts and wave placards to remind the rest of the country that, yes, black lives also matter," writes Santi Elijah Holley in his review. Two books came out on July 14. One of those books blew up the internet. But this is the one we should be talking about. Read Holley's full review here. Then read Coates' book.

• 25 years ago, Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho premiered. Now, Hand2Mouth Theatre's remixed the movie into a lyrical, innovative performance piece, Time, A Fair Hustler. If you remember the Pacific Northwest of the '90s, it'll make you sad, but also grateful. From my review: "In the end, the only thing that's discernable is the pull of nostalgia for a Pacific Northwest that's gone, for a moment in a more anonymous city, witnessing a boy pull up his collar against the rain outside a convenience store, lost, in the dark, with nowhere to go." Ugh, feelings. Did you grow up here? Go see it. Are you a transplant? Go see it. All of you. Now!

• Roughly 4,000: Take any night, and that's how many people are homeless in Portland; of those 4,000, up to 400 are homeless youth. In Survival Guide to the Streets of Portland, homeless youth contributed to artworks offering advice for staying alive. "The Collins Gallery show includes screenprints and large paper skull masks with infographics taken from a Multnomah County study on the city's homeless done last year," writes Jenna Lechner, who attended the show. "The prints give off-the-cuff insights like, 'Go to college, it's a great place to dig through the trash,' and 'Carry keys to avoid incarceration.'" The show closes August 9.