Bukowski: Born Into This dir. Dullaghan Opens Fri June 11 Cinema 21 Along with my all-time favorite writer Raymond Carver, Charles Bukowski was one of those writers I discovered in my teen-hood who told me I wasn’t alone. He was a jerk, and a drunk, and a womanizer, and hysterically funny, and thought shitty thoughts […]
Katie Shimer
Posted inBooks
Stranger Than Fiction Reading at First Unitarian Church
Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk, reading at First Unitarian Church, When you write fiction, you draw from your own experiences. When you write nonfiction–say a memoir–there’s no way you can recall events with complete accuracy. With fiction you’re always telling some truths; with nonfiction you’re always telling some lies. In Chuck Palahniuk’s new book […]
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Homestyle Gourmet
Wine Down: A Wonderland for the Older Set
Wine Down 126 NE 28th 236-9463 While dining at Wine Down, you’ll notice a distinct difference in the patrons here, vs. the patrons at most other hotspots in Portland; this is more of the highbrow older crowd. On warm evenings its front patio is filled with people who have money, and who like to spend […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Sounds of Silence
Hukkle Paints Life Without Speaking
Hukkle dir. Palfi Fri May 28 – Sun May 30 Guild Theater The first thing you should know about the Hungarian film Hukkle is that it has no dialogue. It’s more of what you would call an “experimental” film than a “narrative” film, so if you don’t like experimentalism, don’t see it. The entirety of […]
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Chez Machin
Crepe Holiday – French Bistro Taste Sweet
Chez Machin 3553 SE Hawthorne 736-9381 Crepe places are trendy, and perhaps the trend has gone stale. I mean at most places the crepes always seem over-priced and under-filling anyway, right? Not, however, at Chez Machin, the crepe place that has finally turned me on to crepes. Running late for a Friday night obligation, my […]
Posted inMovies & TV
The Cliffs Notes
Troy: Too Much Story, Too Little Time
Troy dir. Petersen Opens Fri May 14 Various Theaters If you were going to bring an epic tale to life on the big screen, it would be nice if you could find an epic tale to tell. Troy, the latest big budget action/drama/war/romance/adventure film by hack director Wolfgang Petersen (Perfect Storm, Air Force One, Outbreak) […]
Posted inMusic
Electric Sugar
The Thermals Have the Power
Thermals CD Release Tues May 18 Berbati’s 1 SW 3rd I got the Thermals song “No Culture Icons” stuck in my head over a year ago, and it’s still there. In fact, you can’t even mention The Thermals around me without the song’s lyrics–“Hardly art, hardly starving/ hardly art, hardly garbage”–spewing from my mouth like […]
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Turn Up the Heat
Otherwise Nice Restaurant Lacks the Fire
Nuestra Cocina 2135 SE Division 232-2135 What makes you love something? I mean why do I love the show Arrested Development, or the jeans from the Gap, or the coffee from Stumptown? Simple–because they give me what I want. Why do I love certain restaurants and think others are just okay? Of course it’s ingenuity, […]
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Grandma, Grandpa, and You
When You’re Here, You’re Family
Nicola’s 4826 N Lombard 285-1119 DeNicola’s 3520 SE Powell 239-5220 Every once in a while I shirk the confines of class and taste and head out to one of those typical marinara sauce and meatball Italian joints. Who am I kidding? While I consider myself a person with good taste and some class, I’m not […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Stay of Execution
Nick Broomfield’s Career Prolonged (For Now)
Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer Dir. Broomfield Opens Fri April 16 Hollywood Theater Documentarian Nick Broomfield is both a genius and a hack. The director of Kurt and Courtney, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, and now Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial […]
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Taco Bell Drunk, Taco Bell Sober
Walk, Don’t Run, for the Border
Taco Bell Everywhere Consuming Taco Bell while intoxicated is something like chugging a huge glass of water after awaking from seven hours of drunken sleep. We all know it’s magic. Vegetarians have, while in drunken states, been seen wolfing down steak gorditas. People who were passed out have been spotted manning the steering wheel of […]
Posted inMusic
Hippies Out; Rock In
Sabala’s Mt. Tabor Ignites Hawthorne
Mt. Tabor Theater 4811 SE Hawthorne Since I moved to Portland in early 1998, I’ve attended a show at the Mt Tabor theater one time. It was a pretty terrible, badly organized hiphop concert; one of those events that makes you start sweating and staring at your feet from embarrassment. Showcasing hippie and folk music, […]