“It’s going good,” said John Crockett, when asked about his new establishment, the Nest, AKA Alberta’s newest bar. “We still get a lot of Joe’s old customers in, and new people as well. There’s something for everybody.” This was the first thing Crockett told me during our phone conversation, before I’d even had a chance […]
Justin W. Sanders
Posted inTheater & Performance
The Water Principle
In Sowelu Theater Ensemble’s production of Eliza Anderson’s The Water Principle, Deirdre Atkinson plays Addie, the lone occupant of a cabin in a desolate rural landscape. Food is scarce. Water is scarcer. Nearby derelict/developer Weed (Daniel Hill) gives Addie cans of beans in the hopes that she’ll sign her land over to him so he […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Claire Blakely
performing in CATS: The Musical
Schnitzer Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 790-2787, March 23-25 7:30 pm (plus 2 pm on March 25), March 26 1 and 6:30 pm, $15-55 Some time in the late ’70s, Andrew Lloyd Weber read T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and had a vision. “I shall take these wonderful literary felines,” thought Weber, giggling […]
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Man vs. Meat
The Sayler’s 72-Ounce Challenge
In recent weeks, tall, lanky Joe Collver has accomplished two culinary feats of somewhat local renown; he downed the ultra-spicy five-habañero-popper platter at Salvador Molly’s (note: each popper contains three habañero peppers and is dipped in habañero pepper hot sauce), for which they posted a photo of him on the wall of fame. Then, days […]
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Big-Top BrewPub
On BridgePort’s Impressive Evolution
Wowzee woo, after a 14-month renovation and recent reopening, the BridgePort BrewPub has come a long way from its days as a dusty pizza shack with picnic tables. “The renovation is a result of BridgePort looking to the future,” reads the website (bridgeportbrew.com), “and finding ways to broaden the appeal of the BrewPub to the […]
Posted inArt
How to Turn Distress into Success: A Parable of War and its Making
“A rare opportunity to experience its brand of papier-mâché counter intelligence,” begins the Bread and Puppet Theater’s press release, flexing one of the better taglines in recent memory. With its peculiar mixture of political criticism and enormous papier-mâché puppets, BPT certainly has a gimmick to draw people in—but it’s also immersed itself into that gimmick […]
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Doing What it Does
Café Wonder Isn’t Messing Around
WHEN I THINK of places I want to eat, I think of restaurants, not extensions of concert venues. I might get a plate of fries at the Berbati’s bar/eatery annex while waiting for the show to start, or a platter of onion rings upstairs at the Doug Fir in between opening acts, but I’m not […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Dawn Joella Jackson
If people are given permission to create original expression through movement,” local choreographer/dancer Dawn Joella Jackson told me, “they come up with things that are so unique to them, because it’s their own fiber, their own tissue. When you allow someone to use expression in that pure sense, it’s hard to lie through [it].” A […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
After School Girlfight! Kill! Kill!
The folks behind Portland’s 3rd Floor sketch comedy troupe are behind the new show After School Girlfight! Kill! Kill!, but they’re hiding their roots, operating under the moniker Gunhappy Theatrical Ensemble—which focuses on “cult favorites from the early 20th century”—and verbally shouting in their press release, “This is NOT sketch comedy!” In production, however, After […]
Posted inBooks
Cell
There’s a reason CELL rhymes with HELL,” touts the liner notes of Stephen King’s new book, in a grim preview of the terrible writing to come. Clearly yearning to put his own stamp on the already-fading zombie genre resurgence, Cell revolves around an unknown evil power that has commandeered the world’s cell phone satellites. On […]
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Something for Everyone
Everett Street Does it All, and More
I was never a big fan of the Torrefazione coffee shop chain, though I did frequent the one on the corner of NW Everett and 12th, where it rested snugly in a well-lit apex beside Utrecht Art Supply. I would stop by there for a hot cup of ambience, enjoying the atmosphere, but also wishing […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow
olin Jones’ clever, fluffy play The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow follows Jennifer Marcus (Sue Jean Kim),