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Lindsay Costello

Lindsay is the Portland Mercury's staff writer, covering all things arts and culture. Send arts tips and pictures of birds to lindsay@portlandmercury.com.
Posted inBooks

Keep Your Frenemy’s Brain Closer

In Ling Ling Huang’s Immaculate Conception, a new technology brings darker meaning to competition.
Avatar photo by Lindsay Costello

“For me… the main thing is just how deep a love can be, and how much everything else can complicate it,” explained violinist and author Ling Ling Huang. She was excavating the layered themes in her novel Immaculate Conception, a nominee for the 2026 Oregon Book Award’s Ken Kesey Award for Fiction. The book circles […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for March 23-29

Thrifting, zines, and comedy geniuses abound this week.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

You’ve heard of comedians, but did you know there are, like, comedy geniuses? A whole roster of ’em will post up at Revolution Hall to prove it this week at the Mercury’s Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy 2026. Plus, zinesters will show off their DIY wares at Reed College, Parker Posey defines chic in Party Girl, and […]

Posted inVisual Art

Your New Favorite Cat Painting Is Joseph Jones’ “Pink T-shirt”

On view at Adams and Ollman, Jones’ paintings and Carolee Schneeman’s video channel interspecies love.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

Images of cats tend to serve as landing pads for emotional projection. How you interpret them says something interesting about your inner landscape. In a new exhibition at Adams and Ollman, London-born artist Joseph Jones studies the curious humanity embedded in the feline image. Building composites from his extensive archive of cat photos—the artist estimates […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for March 16-22

Espresso martinis, experimental ceramics, and Elliott Smith’s impact.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

The spring equinox falls on March 20! Let’s lean into the new light, shall we? This week, rock mother Toody Cole scorches Star Theater, Jacqueline Novak turns comedy a little more esoteric, and, in the words of Mercury writer Melissa Locker, Jessie Rose Vala’s ceramics show is “really fucking cool.” March is also Espresso Martini […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2026

David Hockney’s Restless Eye Is Revealed

The Portland Art Museum’s new exhibition shows the artist’s evolving style across 60 years and 200 artworks. 
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

“David sees the world backward,” says Doug Roberts, a Los Angeles art dealer and longtime friend of David Hockney. Roberts was appearing on a panel about the artist, as part of Portland Art Museum’s (PAM) new exhibition tracing 60 years of Hockney’s work. He meant it as praise. Hockney, whose sunny California scenes somehow simmer […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2026

Reading the Room at Cooley Gallery’s IF

The new exhibition unites three artists, including a former nun. 
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

What does it mean to write in space? At Reed College’s Cooley Gallery, new director and curator Derek Franklin thinks about it, bringing together three eloquent artists who take language into form. IF pairs serigraphs by Sister Corita Kent, a Roman Catholic nun who eventually left the order to devote herself fully to anti-war, pro-love […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2026

Do This, Do That: Spring Arts 2026

Take heed! Your spring arts and culture plans have arrived.
Avatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photo Bri Brey, Lindsay Costello, Wm. Steven Humphrey, Nolan Parker, and Suzette Smith

Seven Films by Kelly Reichardt THROUGH MARCH 22 (FILM) Clinton Street’s monthlong series for March centers the Pacific Northwest’s director supreme Kelly Reichardt, working near through her entire filmography. Novelist and Reichardt’s frequent artistic collaborator Jon Raymond will attend three screenings (Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, Showing Up) and offer post-viewing Q&As. If you missed […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for March 9-15

Grasshopper pie, Irish boxing, and where to watch the Academy Awards.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

This week, Indigo De Souza swings by to make us cry, Pi Day means eight types of pie are up for grabs at Lauretta Jean’s (but you better get there early), and I bet you’ve never seen a chamber opera about a UFO cult! Plus, Portland has a few Academy Awards watch parties on the […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Second Run Portland: Films for Literary Types

This month, a bevy of options beyond Wuthering Heights.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

Film adaptations of novels tend to get a bad rap, and with Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights landing last month, suddenly everyone holds a strong stance for or against them. Take a breath, dear reader. Perhaps within the tranquil confines of your local cinema…? Because this month, indie screens zero in on film-literature crossovers that hit, actually. […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for February 23-March 1

This week: zines at Fubonn, psychedelic theater, and the Sun Ra Arkestra.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

It got 10 degrees warmer, and I got 10 degrees more confident that I should be out IN THE WINDS, soaring free to a Sam Shepard staging about arts under capitalism or a MOTHERFUCKING GEM SHOW at OMSI. [It’s agate and minerals, calm down. -eds.] In this week’s Do This, Do That we’ve got the […]

Posted inVisual Art

David Hockney Is So Changeable

Portland Art Museum’s new exhibition shows the artist’s evolving style across 60 years and 200 artworks.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

“David sees the world backward,” says Doug Roberts, a Los Angeles art dealer and longtime friend of David Hockney. Roberts was appearing on a panel about the artist, as part of Portland Art Museum’s (PAM) new exhibition tracing 60 years of Hockney’s work. He meant it as praise. Hockney, whose sunny California scenes somehow simmer […]

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