Pullout: Back to School 2007
Posted inFeature
Non-Required Reading
Where to Score Cool Books in Portland without the Lingering Sensation of Being in School
Chas Bowie
Posted inArt
T:BA Day by Day
The Mercury‘s Daily Picks for This Year’s Time-Based Art Festival
Last week, somebody asked us the somewhat surprising question, “What, exactly, is the Time-Based Art Festival?” (TBA). This caught us a little off guard, as we’re more accustomed to the perennial question, “What looks good at TBA this year?” Fortunately, we have answers to both those questions. Put simply, TBA is 11 straight days of […]
Posted inArt
Bruce Davidson
Lecture at the Portland Art Museum
Picking a favorite, or even a representative, project by Bruce Davidson can be a daunting task. There’s the ultra-cool greaser chic of his 1959 series, Brooklyn Gang; his seminal civil rights photos, in which he spent months of his own time on freedom marches and in sharecropper shacks; most famously, there was East 100th Street, […]
Posted inBooks
The Braindead Megaphone
by George Saunders
There is little debate that George Saunders is one of the preeminent short fiction writers working today; wildly imaginative, uniquely funny, and deeply humanistic, his stories read like nothing else in contemporary fiction. But after three collections of short stories, Saunders’ fans have been chomping at the bit to see what else he could do, […]
Posted inBooks
Ovenman
by Jeff Parker (Tin House Books)
There’s little about the premise of Ovenman to endear itself to discerning readers: It’s about a punk rock pizza chef in a shitty Florida town in the early ’90s, and… that’s it. He steals from his job, has bad tattoos up and down his arms, sings for a horrible punk band, and blacks out from […]
Posted inMusic
What Comes after Hyphy?
Turf Talk and Mistah F.A.B. Answer That Question b
A few years ago, it seemed like the Bay Area hyphy movement was here to stay. Predicated on kids spazzing with Ninja Turtle backpacks and ghostriding their momma’s cars, the hyphy movement was the biggest thing to hit rap since, well, crunk, just the year before. Okay, so that’s a bit of an overstatement. In […]
Posted inMusic
Stunted Growth
What Happened to Wilco?
Three or four years ago, it would have been unthinkable that Wilco would be relegated to the second page of the Mercury‘s music section. Our “American Radiohead” was one of the most innovative and fascinating major label acts of the 21st century. After their 2002 fallout with Reprise, Wilco teamed up with sonic adventurer Jim […]
Posted inArt
Third View
For the inaugural show at the DeSoto Project, Blue Sky has chosen to exhibit Third View, a rephotographic landscape project that speaks volumes about the general direction of the nonprofit gallery. Third View is a significant photography project, but it’s been floating around for several years now. It’s hung somewhat haphazardly, which reflects the “everything […]
Posted inMovies & TV
I Hate America
Thanks a Lot, Rush Hour 3
It should be noted that I actually kind of liked the first two Rush Hour movies. I didn’t love them, and I’m in no hurry to see them again, but they didn’t inspire bewildered anger in my heart, which is more than I can say for Brett Ratner’s latest crapfest. The ridiculous plot of Rush […]
Posted inMusic
Balkan Baile Funk
Joro-Boro Holds it Down for the Eastern Bloc
You could be forgiven for not immediately thinking of Bulgaria when asked to contemplate the world’s leading party spots. Lodged between Romania, Serbia, and the Black Sea, the Bulgarian government under Communist rule forbade sexual, and most forms of artistic, expression. But after the Iron Curtain tumbled, Western pop culture flooded into the country just […]
Posted inBooks
Portland Zine Symposium
Events from Thurs Aug 9-Sun Aug 12
If news of Portland’s Seventh Annual Zine Symposium strikes you as a bit ho-hum, there’s a really good chance that you need to get out of Portland more. Take a trip through the Boises and Fresnos of the country—places where creative kids work in relative isolation and would kill for the opportunity to spend a […]
Posted inBooks
Walker Evans: Lyric Documentary
by John T. Hill (Steidl)
In 1935, a literary-minded dandy from New York named Walker Evans traversed the country for 14 months on the government dime. In response to the Great Depression, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) commissioned a now-legendary group of photographers to document the economic and social scene of the mid-’30s. Although Evans was a man of few […]