The bar at the heart of Bar Carlo is, in fact, an espresso bar. Quaint, right? It’s a big, beautiful bar that dominates the otherwise under-furnished restaurant, providing both a focal point and a suggestion that Bar Carlo might have more to offer than its mismatched chairs, linoleum floors, and unfinished interior would initially suggest. […]
Alison Hallett
Alison Hallett served nobly as the Mercury's arts editor from 2008-2014. Her proud legacy lives on.
Posted inTheater & Performance
Spamalot
It’s hard for me, a casual Monty Python fan with an adversarial relationship to musicals, to understand why anyone would want to see Spamalot. Granted, it’s been years since I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the film from which the Broadway production currently residing at the Keller derives its inspiration (if I may […]
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Pizza Party
Wood Fired ‘Za at Bar Dué
When people are talking shit about the Pearl, Fratelli is one of the examples (along with Andina, bluehour, and ten01) frequently raised in the district’s defense—proof that good restaurants can and do thrive alongside Henry’s Tavern and P.F. Chang’s. And rightly so—the high-end Italian restaurant can be counted on for an elegant meal at a […]
Posted inFeature
How The Other Half Drinks
The Mercury Drinking Issue: Challenging the Complacency of the Portland Drinker
If you were to look very, very carefully at the sidewalk outside of my apartment, you would see what appears to be a shallow trench leading east. Were you to crouch down and use your best urban scouting skills to follow this trench, you’d find that it led you on a comprehensive tour of the […]
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Cooler Than You
Clyde Common Is All That (and More)
Sometimes a restaurant is so surrounded by hype that it can be difficult to experience the food itself. There are restaurants like John Gorham’s Toro Bravo, eagerly anticipated thanks to Gorham’s previous work with Viande and Simpatica, or Le Pigeon, which turned heads out of the gate with Chef Gabriel Rucker’s bold signature style—but in […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Zombie Prom
Teatre at Theater! Theatre!
If the phrase “Night of the Living Dead meets Hairspray” makes you cringe, then I’d advise you to stop reading this review right now—there’s nothing for you here. If, however, you can process a bit of cheese without your entire system grinding to a halt, then you’d do well to hustle on over to Teatre’s […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
As You Like It
Northwest Classical Theatre Company
I absolutely love the Northwest Classical Theatre Company’s motto: “Content over Concept.” Translation: Don’t obscure your text in grandiose directorial vision or pandering rewrites. Trust that Shakespeare and Chekhov knew what they were doing. The popular conceit that classic works must be given facelifts in order to appeal to modern audiences insults both the intelligence […]
Posted inBooks
Before
by Irini Spanidou (Random House)
There are so many books to recommend in this world that it often seems a shame to waste column inches warning readers against the bad ones. There is, however, a particularly insidious and well-marketed branch of contemporary literature that banks on the fact that people frequently do judge books by their covers, and specializes in […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Almost, Maine
Not since the infamous one-man show The Centering (about a prisoner who avoids the pain of his confinement by “escaping to the only refuge available: the circus clown within his mind”) have I found a local theatrical production so utterly, completely baffling. Almost, Maine suffers from a surfeit of sincerity so pronounced that it can’t […]
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Sake 101
Zilla Brings Sake to the Masses
I have to admit, I don’t know much about sake. I’ll drink anything you put in front of me, of course, but as for really appreciating it—I’ve long considered sake to be just another taste that I can’t quite afford to acquire. The accessibility of sake in Portland has recently gotten a serious boost, though, […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
…And the Horse You Rode in On
One side effect of living under an inept and despicable political administration is that sometimes it seems like no jab at the Bush regime is too easy, no joke too obvious to inspire derisive collective amusement. (Yeah! He does look just like a monkey!) Sketch comedy troupe the Tragedies bank on this sympathy in their […]
Posted inBooks
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(Scholastic)
In a recent piece in the New York Times, an English professor had this to say about the Harry Potter books: “This has probably been the most fun that intelligent people can have with their clothes on in the 21st century.” I happen to agree with that statement. Which is unfortunate, because after this incredibly […]