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Cameron Crowell

Cameron Crowell is a writer and reporter based in Portland. See more of his work at his blog (In)Action—inaction.substack.com.
Posted inMusic

Ex-Boyfriend Music as Shared Memory, New Genre, and Bike Ride

Bike Summer ride organizers Lucy Kennedy-Wong & Priscilla Wu want you to invest in the bit!
Avatar photo Cameron Crowell

It started as a bit between friends. Lucy Kennedy-Wong and Priscilla Wu both work downtown for the City of Portland—Kennedy-Wong long encouraged Wu to bike a trip or two more per week even if the commute from Wu’s Brentwood-Darlington spot seems long.  Naturally, the two joined Portland City Bike Bus, a program where city employees […]

Posted inMusic

The Pure Moods of Brian Eno, Enya, and Bike Summer

The August 14 ride will be a chill one, featuring sounds from the famed ’90s compilation. 
Avatar photo Cameron Crowell

A few nights ago I biked the Springwater Corridor at dusk as kids were scrambling into an abandoned industrial site on the waterfront. I slowed, hearing an unmistakable hiss. Someone’s hand lit up, holding a brown orb at the end of the fuse. Out of sight, a femme laughed a little, before urging the ignitor […]

Posted inAlbum Review

Album Review: The Post-Punk Paradise of La Isla Electronica

Portland needs more Spanish-language punk, here it is! 
Avatar photo Cameron Crowell

La Isla Electronica (L.I.E.) begins their self-titled EP by munching on some chips and declaring “Vale vamos,” (ok, let’s go), before every instrument in this Portland four piece enters at once on “No Digas Nunca” (Don’t Say Never). It’s as if your friends loaded a 24-pack into the basket on the back of your bike […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2025

Sounds Struggling to Stay Words

Artist Patricia Vázquez Gómez pairs video and audio in ja’ / buuts’ / t’aan (Water / Smoke / Word), an installation about diaspora and the loss of language.
Avatar photo Cameron Crowell

For the past six years, Patricia Váz-quez Gómez has worked closely with youth and families in Oregon’s Mayan Indigenous diaspora. A multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Portland and Mexico City, she collaborated on cultural events, art workshops, and Mayan language classes. Neither she nor the children were fluent in Yucatec Mayan, an Indigenous language […]

Posted inNews

New Seasons Employees Remain on Strike Over “Unjust” Firing of Longtime Employee

The grocery chain tentatively agreed not to fire staff without just cause. Then it terminated a 19-year employee who aided a blind colleague.
Avatar photo Cameron Crowell

Update- 2/4: Union members say they’ve ended the strike after entering “mediated conversations about Randy’s reinstatement” with management. Workers at the Arbor Lodge New Seasons continued their strike into a seventh day on Monday, in an effort to reinstate lead cashier Randy Foster. Until last Tuesday, Foster had worked at the grocery store for 19 […]

Posted inCulture

The Mercury’s Favorite Culture Moments of 2024

Doing something stupid in Ladds, dressing up for the movies, and finding catharsis at live shows, et al.
Avatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photo Cameron Crowell, Andrea Damewood, Melissa Locker, Ben Salmon, Dom Sinacola, Corbin Smith, HR Smith, Suzette Smith, and Joe Streckert

We went out a lot this year. We saw bands, rode bikes, ate snacks—all the stuff of life. This list is a hodgepodge of experience, pulling from our culture writing team—who are drawing from both wider and ultra local scenes. This year, we saw PAM CUT join Hollywood Theatre and Clinton Street as a spot […]

Posted inBooks

The Mercury’s Favorite Books of 2024

On this list, revolutionary writings share space with Portland zombies and memories of the Barefoot Contessa
Avatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photo Andrea Damewood, Cameron Crowell, Melissa Locker, Suzette Smith, Blair Stenvick, and Joe Streckert

Portland as ground zero for a zombie plague. Bisexual exes on a romcom food and wine tour. And how pointless it is to try to guess what happens next in a MIranda July novel. It’s the Mercury’s favorite books of 2024!

Posted inMusic

What’s Wrong With the Dare?

This Portland indie heartfelt went full New York sleaze, and we’re dancing to it.
Avatar photo Cameron Crowell

Early on in F For Fake—Orson Welles’ famous 1973 pseudo-documentary about master art forger Elmyr de Hory—de Hory’s biographer says: “The important distinction to make when you’re talking about the genuine quality of a painting is not so much whether it is a real painting or a fake—it’s whether it’s a good fake or a […]

Posted inSports

Dyke Hoops Courts Community in Portland’s Queer Sports Scene

A growing pickup basketball group ensures all players can shoot their shot.
Avatar photo Cameron Crowell

On any given summer afternoon, in parks across the city, you can find groups of guys—men mostly—clamoring to stay active in pickup basketball games. Semi-frequently the games fall into fighting, often enough that we don’t think about how weird it is. A grown man taunts another grown man as “not a real hooper,” while the rest […]

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