JAW (formerly known as Just Add Water/West, now officially going by the punchier acronym) is a nationally known festival that occurs every year in our fair city, thanks to the folks at Portland Center Stage. The festival works like this: Playwrights from across the country submit their scripts, and four are chosen to receive the […]
Alison Hallett
Alison Hallett served nobly as the Mercury's arts editor from 2008-2014. Her proud legacy lives on.
Posted inUncategorized
Ladies Who Brunch
Breakfast When You Want It
Portland rolls out the red carpet for brunch on weekends, but finding good spots to breakfast during the rest of the week can be tricky, especially if you’re unwilling or unable to get up by the horrible 11 am deadlines imposed by many restaurants. And then there are the days when a powerful craving for […]
Posted inComedy
Simply the Best
Only the Best Are Invited to the Best Comedy Sketch Festival
The first national Sketch Fest was held in Seattle in 1999, conceived both as a showcase for touring sketch comedy groups, and an opportunity for sketch comics to meet, network, and show off. Each year since, the concept has grown in popularity, as other cities quickly jumped on the bandwagon. Sketch comedy festivals are held […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Puberty, Wizard-Style
Gettin’ Surly with Harry Potter
In this writer’s opinion, Order of the Phoenix is by far the most stressful Harry Potter book so far: When Harry arrives at Hogwarts at the beginning of year five, it’s to find that no one believes that Lord Voldemort has returned, Professor Dumbledore won’t speak to him, the horrible Dolores Umbridge is the new […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Scandalicious!
Throwing Lye at Your Girlfriend Is Fun
Crazy Lovehas a potentially fascinating subject—it is not, however, a fascinating documentary. Writer/director Dan Klores is content to skim the surface of his material—making a compelling story feel like little more than a novel bit of sensationalism. Crazy Love opens with interviews discussing the relationship between Burt Pugach and Linda Riss, who met in the […]
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Brave the Bull
Toro Bravo Does Tapas Right
When I told one of my friends that I was reviewing a tapas restaurant this week, she promptly said, “I hate tapas.” Now, given that Portland doesn’t have too much going on in the way of Spanish restaurants, I doubt she’s actually had tapas; but the word—which in Spain refers to snacks that are usually […]
Posted inMusic
Uh-Oh It’s Magic
Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who has ever been subjected to one of my regrettably frequent drunken tirades about the final Harry Potter book. I didn’t mean it when I said, “If Dumbledore was wrong and Snape is really evil, then no one should ever trust anyone and life […]
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Behind the Velvet Ropes
Bling and Booze at the Chesterfield
East Burnside’s newest nightspot, the Chesterfield, is housed in a bright red building that has been certified LEED Platinum; that is, designed to the most rigorous environmental standards. This should give the Chesterfield a certain degree of credibility with the sustainability set—yet there’s a distinct sense that the Chesterfield’s clientele isn’t exactly concerned about their […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
The Portland Improv Invitational
CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh, 796-9550, Fri July 6 & Sat July 7, 8 pm, $10 per night
This weekend, Brainwaves Improv Comedy is hosting the first-ever PDX Improv Invitational, “The Long and the Short of It,” bringing together six local comedy troupes for a night of short- and long-form improvisation. (Short-form improv is the Whose Line Is It, Anyway? style, while long form places more emphasis on developing characters and storylines.) Tyler […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Puberty, Wizard-Style
Gettin’ Surly with Harry Potter
In this writer’s opinion, Order of the Phoenix is by far the most stressful Harry Potter book so far: When Harry arrives at Hogwarts at the beginning of year five, it’s to find that no one believes that Lord Voldemort has returned, Professor Dumbledore won’t speak to him, the horrible Dolores Umbridge is the new […]
Posted inNews
Look Out! It’s the Mercury‘s Summer DANGER Guide!
There’s no getting around it—summer makes people stupid. And stupid people quickly become dead people. Do you want to be both stupid AND dead? We didn’t think so. That’s why you’re going to be SMART, and read the Mercury‘s Summer Danger Guide: the city’s only complete compilation of EVERYTHING that will cause or contribute to […]
Posted inUncategorized
BBQ and Brews
Texas Style, with a P-Town Twist
Picture this scene: I’m sitting in a long, narrow dining room with windows at one end, a kitchen at the other, and tables lined up tidily in between. Two cute boys sit at an adjacent table, and there’s a pile of pork spareribs on the table in front of me. I look at the boys. […]