Love Our Arts & Culture Coverage?
You can help fund it!

Give now
Avatar photo

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 inMovies & TV

Kelly Reichardt’s Small Politics

The Mastermind’s Josh O’Connor is an art thief who can’t outrun the world he’s avoiding.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

In her 1970 essay “On the Morning After the Sixties,” Joan Didion described her disillusionment with the idea that political protest could “affect man’s fate in the slightest.” It’s an opinion James Blaine “J.B.” Mooney might share, if he were paying attention. He’s the lead character and hapless art thief in director Kelly Reichardt’s new […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for November 17-23

A raconteur, a Canadian singer-songwriter, and the Unipiper walk into a bar…
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

Welp, welcome to another week, whether you like it or not—and there are, in fact, a few reasons to like it. Consider these: Lan Su Chinese Garden’s chrysanthemum celebration creates a “living gallery,” the Rothko Pavilion at the Portland Art Museum finally opens, and a stage adaptation of Little Women asks an important question—are you a […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for November 10-16

This week, comedians give questionable advice, and cars are cancelled.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

When leaves fall onto the sidewalk in autumn, their tannins leach into the concrete and leave perfect little brown leaf prints all over the ground. So, we hereby declare this “perfect little brown leaf print” week—also known as: that stage of autumn when the sky darkens and grays, but there’s still a bit of good-autumn […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Second Run Portland: In Memoria, Tilda Swinton Has a Sonic Headache

Plus more slow cinema, Celtic myth, and Sergei Parajanov in smell-o-vision.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

Unlike some months, the repertory movie screenings of November lack a natural theme. But our indie cinemas have still formed a united front, choosing films that ask their audiences to hang tight with a little more focus and faith than usual. Surreal and nonlinear selections like The Double Life of Véronique, The Color of Pomegranates, […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for November 3-9

This week: frybread, Emma Stone lathered in antihistamine cream, and lots and lots of books.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

Halloween’s over! And it’s cold, rainy, and kind of dark outside!! Guess what would help? Adding to your TBR list. This week, new reads proliferate in many local venues and varieties: Portland Book Festival posts up at the art museum, Cover to Cover brings readings to lit-friendly locations on both sides of the river, and […]

Posted inCalendar

Happy Halloween! What to Do October 30-November 2

Do This, Do That and Mercury Music Picks go full Frankenstein with event recommendations for Halloweekend! 
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Nolan Parker

LINDSAY COSTELLO: What’re you up to this Halloweekend? NOLAN PARKER: Idk yet, there’s so much on! Papi’s got a Día de los Muertos gig on in NE and Nonbinary GF are headlining a medieval punk show at High Limit Room. She/her about town, Jenna Fletcher is also chirping about a queer dance party at White […]

Posted inVisual Art

What Wanders Through a Body?

A new exhibition at Portland gallery Lumber Room compiles corporeal works by Louise Bourgeois and Isabelle Albuquerque.
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 October 27-November 2

This week, the veil thins with queer Halloween comedy and screenings of horror classics. 
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

As with most major holidays, celebrations leading up to Halloween are just as important as (if not more than) the main event. In Portland this week, the eves before All Hallow’s Eve promise cauldrons of tom yum pozole, classic horror screenings, and the real Big Scary—a novel that asks, “What if the Cascadia earthquake came […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Theater Review: In Dancing on the Sabbath, the Viewer Is the Villain

Shaking the Tree’s new Grimm fairy tale adaptation implicates its audience in a silent system of surveillance.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

“I wonder what might have happened if we’d intervened,” an audience member mused at the end of Shaking the Tree’s latest production, Dancing on the Sabbath. At check-in, we’d received a note on letterhead from the Office of Royal Protection—its black logo depicting an eyeball wearing a crown—explaining we would surveil five misbehaving princesses through an […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for October 20-26

This week: fresh cider, drive-in theater scares, and music for trees.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

We’re more than halfway through October, otherwise known as the best month of the year, which is a bit devastating. But the air is still crisp, the frogs are still inflatable, and this week’s events reflect the city’s devotion to celebrating fall, despite [gestures wildly]. For one thing, you can cop fresh cider and scare […]

Posted inDo This, Do That

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for October 13-19

This week: mushroom education, cut-up comedy, and plenty of contemporary art.
Avatar photoAvatar photo Lindsay Costello and Mercury Staff

Not typically the type to check out gallery shows? Consider stretching your self-image this week. Lumber room will exhibit organic works by Louise Bourgeois (of gigantic spider sculpture fame), and Emily Counts’ gleaming ceramic moth flutters into the city. Plus, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art will open their first post-Time-Based Art Festival show, and it […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Second Run Portland: Phantasm’s Freaky Mortician Takes Over a Portland Funeral Home

Plus, city theaters pregame for Halloween with Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s neo-noir Cure and a fashionable giallo classic.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

Yes, it’s October, and yes, that means it’s time to watch something that leaves you a little unsettled. But that doesn’t mean settling for the same old slashers. (Okay… some slashers can stay. More on that below.) This month, indie theaters dig a little deeper, offering less-screened but much-loved options like Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s slow-burn detective […]

Gift this article