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 inBooks/Magazines/Comics

Where To Go for the Second Annual Portland Book Week

From silent reading sessions to bookish tattoos, PBW maps out a literary treasure hunt across the city.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

Only in its second year, Portland Book Week already feels like a fixture. Launched by Powell’s Books and the Cascade Booksellers Association, the ten-day literary celebration makes one thing clear: If you think you’ve hit every bookshop in the area, well, you probably haven’t.  From June 6–15, more than 60 bookstores across Portland, Vancouver, and […]

Posted inFood Issue 2025

Process Over Product

Artist Meech Boakye on decay, labor, and food as a gift.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

Meech Boakye’s lush, organic, and often edible artworks find their footing in floral, fungal, and microbial relationships. The Portland-based artist, originally from Winnipeg, views these relationships as “armatures for learning how to be in a community.” This leads them to share everything from abundant “digital gardens” and recipes for nettle rennet and fig sap cheese […]

Posted inCity Guide 2025

Ticket to Ride

A guide to Portland’s most scenic TriMet bus trips.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

[Read all of the articles in our Portland Fun Guide HERE! Looking for a print copy? Look at this handy-dandy map!—eds.] After years of depending on TriMet to get around Portland, I’ve developed a complicated relationship with the city’s transit system. One can direct many valid criticisms TriMet’s way—it’s plagued by asshole fare cops, a troubled […]

Posted inSpring Arts 2025

Why Restore Waterlilies Now?

Portland Art Museum unveils a refreshed Monet, shedding light on the artist’s fascination with atmosphere and Japanese influence.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

The Mercury covers culture & art because we think all its various forms are—quite plainly—how people understand one another. Conversations about food, music, performance, and “weird” installation art provide touchstones to deepen friendships, create new connections, and better understand our world. If you appreciate the Mercury’s interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution […]

Posted inHoliday Guide 2024 🎅

Zen and the Art of Holiday Pet Sitting

I’m permanently estranged from my family.
 Here’s what cats and dogs have taught me.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

  [Editor’s note: Read all our holly jolly HOLIDAY GUIDE articles here. Looking for a print copy? Good! You can find it in more than 500 spots across Portland with this handy map!]   From etymonline.com: estrange (v.) late 15c., from French estrangier “to alienate,” from Vulgar Latin *extraneare “to treat as a stranger,” from […]

Posted inTBA

TBA Review: If You Want Solitude, Stay Far Away From Club Alive

Kye Grant’s monthly, genre-fluid event blends participatory art and dance parties.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

“The apparel is quite special,” my friend Rose mused. She was right. While awaiting entry into Club Alive, my field of vision swam with humans sporting face gems, organza, velvet bell bottoms, pink pleats, and patent leather. The monthly, genre-fluid performance party helmed by artist-experimenter Kye Grant [who—full disclosure—has written for this publication -eds] has […]

Posted inEverOut

EverOut’s 2024 Pride Event Calendar

Don’t miss a minute of fun during this year’s Queer Summer!
Avatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photo Julianne Bell, Lindsay Costello, Shannon Lubetich, Janey Wong, and Audrey Vann

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] Community Oaks Park Pride Oaks Park celebrates the Portland queer community with a day of discounted rides, limited-edition treats, pride-themed carnival game prizes, special performances, and more. Did I mention free cake and balloons? You can stop by a vendor fair, play […]

Posted inQueer Guide 2024

EverOut’s 2024 Pride Event Calendar

Don’t miss a minute of fun during this year’s Queer Summer!
Avatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photoAvatar photo Julianne Bell, Lindsay Costello, Shannon Lubetich, Janey Wong, and Audrey Vann

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] Community Oaks Park Pride Oaks Park celebrates the Portland queer community with a day of discounted rides, limited-edition treats, pride-themed carnival game prizes, special performances, and more. Did I mention free cake and balloons? You can stop by a vendor fair, play […]

Posted inMusic

Laughing Matter

An Interview with the Most Fascinating Man in New York—and His Puppet Frog Dr. Love—Ahead of His Show in Portland.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

If you’re acquainted with avant-garde music history, you might already know the story. One day in 1979, Brian Eno happened upon Laraaji meditatively busking with an electric zither in Washington Square Park and scrawled a short note inviting him to collaborate. Equally present in the online sphere is the counterpoint that Laraaji “discovered” Eno that […]

Posted inSay Nice Things 2024

Say Nice Things About… Portland’s Themed Bookstores!

Whether you’re into sci-fi, romance, or weirdness, Portland has a bookstore for YOU!
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

[Welcome to our second annual “SAY NICE THINGS ABOUT PORTLAND” issue! Read it online here, or if you like physical, paper-y things, you can find it in more than 50 locations all around the city!—eds] As someone who briefly braved the trenches of bookstore work (I was a “generalist” at Powell’s during the pandemic), my […]

Gift this article