One of the strangest ideas I ever encountered was the concept of strip club juice bars. “Let me get this straight,” I marveled, after a local friend told me about the concept. “It’s a strip
Chas Bowie
Posted inArt
Clear the Way for TBA
The Mercury’s Guide to Portland’s Biggest Arts Fest
Get yer TBA tickets! Get yer TBA tickets! The official TBA Box Office is in the PICA building, 1122 NW Glisan, and is the best place to hit up for tickets, which run from around $10 for individual events all the way up to a $500 Patron Pass that gives you full access to everything, […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Mormons vs. Moore
Succinct Reviews for the Discerning Cinephile
It’s easy to take sides in This Divided State, a film about Michael Moore’s ridiculously controversial visit
Posted inVisual Art
Thanks, Just Looking
www.we-make-money-not-art.com
The name, We Make Money Not Art, is the supreme dickhead-uncle-at-Thanksgiving pronouncement, the slogan of those who know the price of everything but the value of nothing. So when anybody gives their blog this Michael Douglas/Wall Street-y name, you’ve got to figure they’re total jackasses or have their tongues planted firmly in cheek. We Make […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Constantly Predictable
Art vs. Cliché in The Constant Gardener
In 2002, Fernando Meirelles blazed onto the scene with one of the most astonishing debut films of the decade, City of God. Set at a breakneck
Posted inBooks
Chuck Klosterman
In May I met with Chuck Klosterman at the Dakota apartment building in New York—the site where John Lennon
Posted inMusic
Crunk-Ass Evangelism
Jim White’s Dirty South
Jim White Sat August 13 Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside On one hand, it kills me that Jim White’s music isn’t revered on the same level as contemporary geniuses Björk, Beck, or Aphex Twin. On the other hand, one reason White’s music is so thrilling is that in the eight years since his debut, […]
Posted inBooks
Ice Haven
Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes (Pantheon) Daniel Clowes, author of the comic novels Ghost World, David Boring, and the new Ice Haven, suffers from a peculiar jinx also belonging to the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The first Daniel Clowes work that you read will likely blow you away: His alienated characters, workman-like drawings, and clipped, […]
Posted inArt
Thanks, Just Looking
Kalju Big Battel
In honor of the Mercury’s special Japanese-themed issue, I decided to investigate Kaiju Big Battel, the Japanese-y wrestling send-up that swirls the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and Godzilla aesthetics with in-ring wrestling action. Some of you dear readers may have already checked out a Kaiju Big Battel DVD or even seen one of their live […]
Posted inArt
Thanks, Just Looking
Writing About Art? Look Like an Ass!
Writing about art–or, writing about art in an interesting manner, anyway–isn’t an easy gig. There are a number of factors at play here (getting invited to all the shows, but then being bitched about holistically, etc.), but one of the main reasons that being a fresh voice in arts writing is tough is that it […]
Posted inArt
Thanks, Just Looking
Brad Adkins Covers Francis Alys
Curiously enough, cover songs are pretty much verboten in the art world. (Actually, that’s not entirely true. Yasumasa Morimura created an entire career by meticulously recasting himself in iconic artworks by Cindy Sherman and Frida Kahlo, but that was more of an academic postmodern requisite that somebody had to do so we could close the […]