“All American Salute to Pork” Mercury Food Issue
Erin LaCour
Posted inTheater & Performance
Arcadia
Hailed by many as Tom Stoppard’s best play for its mixture of intellectual wit and humanity, Arcadia is a wholly pleasurable theater experience. Set in the English manor Sidley Park in both the early 1800s and the present day, the play intertwines the vastly different periods through its exploration of mathematical theory, historical mystery, and […]
Posted inBooks
Reading Portland: The City in Prose
by John Trombold and Peter Donahue
Reading Portland presents a complex overview of Portland’s progress from the time of its establishment to the modern day, compiled from the writings of over 80 authors whose genres range from fiction to memoir. While many outstanding writers are featured in the collection—including Rudyard Kipling, Northwest darling Beverly Cleary, and famed Fight Club author Chuck […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Bark! The Musical
Bark! The Musical is not the dog’s answer to Cats—and sadly, it doesn’t try to be. In sharp contrast, Bark! fails to deliver in the most important way: It doesn’t take itself seriously. Cats, the Andrew Lloyd Webber production inspired by the poetry of T.S. Eliot, ran for nearly 20 years on Broadway because it […]
Posted inBooks
Clown Girl
Take the clown out of this novel, and you’ve got Girl, a novel that tugs on your heartstrings for the title character Nita, a confused, fledgling young artist. Put the clown back in, and (former Mercury Arts Editor) Monica Drake’s book has added dimension, but lost depth. Clown Girl takes place in Baloneytown, a faltering […]
Posted inNews
Bike Beat
Bike Activist Launches Patrols in Wake of Attack
On January 10, two white women were shoved off their bikes by three African American teenage girls near Legacy Hospital [“Bicyclists Attacked,” News, Jan 18]. Since that time, the attack has raised questions throughout the community of whether this crime, and other recent bike attacks in the neighborhood, are race-related or simply anti-cyclist. In response, […]
Posted inNews
The Clean-Up Crew
Making Sense of Measure 37
With local governments scrambling to make sense of Measure 37, the state legislature last week formed a special joint committee to pick apart the law and the effect it’s already had on the statewide landscape. In 2004, Oregon voters passed M37, which allows landowners to file claims for compensation or a waiver of land use […]
Posted inNews
Lost in Translation
Police Say Cop “Accidentally Fell” on Chasse; Witness Statements Say Otherwise
The official police investigative reports into the in-custody death of James Philip Chasse Jr. on September 17 appear to have ignored—or at least heavily re-interpreted—the direct testimony of several independent witnesses. The police investigation found that Chasse was killed because Officer Christopher Humphreys “accidentally fell” on him, as Sergeant Kyle Nice and Sheriff Deputy Brett […]
Posted inNews
Lost in Translation
Police Say Cop “Accidentally Fell” on Chasse, Witness Statements Say Otherwise
The official police investigative reports into the in-custody death of James Philip Chasse Jr. on September 17 appear to have ignored—or at least heavily re-interpreted—the direct testimony of several independent witnesses. The police investigation found that Chasse was killed because Officer Christopher Humphreys “accidentally fell” on him, as Sergeant Kyle Nice and Sheriff Deputy Brett […]
Posted inNews
Blue Tuesday
Democrats Succeed Nationally, While Progressives Carry the Ballot in Oregon
The good news started rolling in shortly before 3 pm. Exit polls from 10 key states showed that Democrats were leading the Senate races in eight—even in places like Ohio and Missouri—while Republicans were only pulling through in Tennessee and Arizona. The trend held all night. Thanks to the Republicans’ bungling of the Iraq War, […]