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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 inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for February 2-8

Heated Rivalry, surreal ceramics, and a Minneapolis fundraiser with wontons.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

What’s up, February? The annual Portland Winter Light Festival illuminates the city this week, with glowy mood-enhancers like a “cosmic” cuttlefish and touch-sensitive light installations. Topping the list of “dudes you have heard of” are Chuck Klosterman and Todd Barry, both of whom will swing by to share their stuff—a new football-themed book and new […]

Posted inBooks

Hurricane Envy Has Something to Do with You

Sara Jaffe’s short story collection digs deep into queer parenting, the rise of the music algorithm, and the many shapes of adulthood.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

In Sara Jaffe’s short story “Today’s Problems,” the narrator keeps a living document of national and international headlines—police violence, Israel’s potential annexation of Jerusalem—alongside intimate anxieties, like their own kid’s possible ringworm. The combined list functions as a reminder that “today’s problems” aren’t abstract forces. They express themselves in the strange frictions of everyday life. […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for January 26-February 1

Warm up with electropop, meta-theater, and flavor-packed wieners.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

Guard your buns, because this Monday marks the beginning of the Mercury‘s Wiener Week! Plus, electropop and avant-garde musicians are coming to town, and did you know you can see a film at Laurelhurst Theater for only seven bones on Tuesdays? On a more serious note, if you’re in a blue mood due to… everything […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Caught in the Middle of Impact Play

At Performance Works NW, a new show from Genderbomb builds radical intimacy through kink. Are audiences prepared?
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

“What you witness at this show will be art made for the moment by people who aren’t so much putting on a play, but caught in the middle of play,” read the print program for Impact Play. Produced by trans stage art ensemble Genderbomb, the new anthology showcase of shorts, staged at Performance Works, seemed to […]

Posted inVisual Art

What Wanders Through a Body?

At curious Portland gallery Lumber Room, corporeal works by Louise Bourgeois and Isabelle Albuquerque converse.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

The myth of feminine hysteria didn’t start in a Victorian sanatorium. Long before Freud heard about it and thought it sounded super legit, ancient Greek doctors imagined the uterus as a restless “wandering womb,” traversing the body and wreaking emotional havoc. In The Wandering Womb at Lumber Room, Los Angeles-based artist Isabelle Albuquerque revives and digs […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for January 19-25

This week: Fancy seafood, fine prints, and indie rock mainstays the Antlers.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

The word “January” developed from the Latin word Ianuarius or “Janus,” referring to an ancient Roman diety associated with beginnings, transitions, and passageways. In other words, January is about deciding how you want to walk through the door. So, let’s get to it. If you have the day off work on January 19, why not use […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Swimming Through Trauma in The Chronology of Water

Kristen Stewart’s first feature film interprets Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir through fragmentation and aquatic metaphor.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

“I remember things in retinal flashes. Without order. Your life doesn’t happen in any kind of order… It’s all a series of fragments and repetitions and pattern formations. Language and water have this in common,” the Oregon-based author Lidia Yuknavitch writes in her 2011 memoir, The Chronology of Water. It follows, then, that director Kristin Stewart’s […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for January 12-18

This week: Ghibli favorites, medieval books, and Steve Gunn’s ambient guitar.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

The news is bleak, the nights are long. Yet somehow… the calendar is still stacked. January is when culture gets weird in the best way; this week, medieval manuscripts emerge from the vault, and camp horror and queer literature come out to play. Plus, artist Elizabeth Knight presents her dog embroideries, and local hardcore shows […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Second Run Portland: Rich People Behaving Badly

Peter Greenaway’s gourmet art film and Frederick Wiseman’s snowy documentary show vastly different approaches to class critique.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

Some claim that January is a cultural dead zone for events, and on days when the sun seems to clock out at noon, it’s hard to argue. But while much of the city hibernates, one institution keeps the lights on. Thanks, independent movie theaters!! This month’s screenings come through with interesting takes on class critique […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for December 29-January 4

Nothing says “2026” like a cowboy prom and a very ’80s vampire flick.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

It’s the last week of 2025, and all those other Do This, Do That events are so last year. Here’s a fresh roundup to round out your week, including events featuring complicated comedians, hot vampires, and honky tonk opportunities. Plus, New Year’s matcha and a journaling session set you up for self-actualized success in 2026—but […]

Posted inCalendar

Happy New Year’s Eve! What to Do on December 31

Do This, Do That and Mercury Music Picks join forces, guiding you into 2026.
Avatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photo Nolan Parker, Lindsay Costello, and Mercury Staff

As 2025 comes to a close, let us reflect on what a wild year it has been. 2025 blew the doors off all of our expectations clocking in at 525,600 minutes, 365 calendar days, and 12 distinct months. Can you even believe it? It’ll be hard for 2026 to keep up, but hopes are high […]

Posted inVisual Art

The Mercury’s Favorite Visual Art Shows of 2025: Calligraphy, a Lettuce Lamp, and a Salmon Cannon

New artists and art spaces made Portland feel like its old self.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

The most memorable exhibitions this year made a mess, rejecting pristine gallery walls in favor of fish skin, plastic bags, and lived-in spaces like a mall corridor and a home garage. Artists viewed art itself as inhabitable—Ginny Sims turned walls into spaces for dimensional scenes, and Lydia Rosenberg’s experimental lamps gave Society a chaotic, yet […]

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