WITH A MOVE from SE Hawthorne to Lower Burnside, and big-name headliners paired with our local stand-up faves (when else do you get to see Janeane Garofalo AND Bri Pruett’s Mercury-forged sex column in stand-up showcase form?), this year’s Bridgetown Comedy Festival promises to deliver four days of outsized chuckles. From feminist jokes to ’90s […]
Megan Burbank
Posted inComedy
What Wizardry is This?! Getting Baked at Bridgetown
Matt Braunger Matt Braunger: Teller of jokes, singer of songs. Dudes tell jokes and then play a song with a really good backing band: Such is the conceit of Steve Agee and Brendon Small’s LA-based comedy show Baked. And I say dudes, because they were ALL dudes at last night’s Bridgetown iteration at the Doug […]
Posted inComedy
It’s Here! The Best Day is Here! Bridgetown Comedy Fest Starts NOW!
Bridgetown Comedy Festival THE TIME HAS COME! The time has come! REJOICE! For today begins this year’s Bridgetown Comedy Festival! Are you overwhelmed by this year’s offerings? ME TOO! We at the Mercury are packing our schedules over the next few days, and we’ll be reporting ON THE GROUND. In the meantime, we’ve prepared a […]
Posted inArt
The Art of Stalking
Sophie Calle’s Nosy Conceptual Art, Revisited
Sophie Calle’s nosy conceptual art, revisited.
Posted inComedy
A Case of the Chuckles
Our Picks for This Year’s Bridgetown Comedy Fest
Our picks for this year’s Bridgetown Comedy Fest.
Posted inBooks
“I Was So Young Once”: Suzanne Scanlon’s Genre-Bustin’ Her 37th Year: An Index
Noemi Press Spring’s brought a spate of diary-like books to the fore—from Sarah Manguso‘s Ongoingness to Heidi Julavits‘ The Folded Clock to Maggie Nelson’s AMAZING Argonauts, out this month, seriously go buy a copy so we can talk about it—but one of my favorites so far has to be Suzanne Scanlon’s Her 37th Year: An […]
Posted inArtsy
Breaking: There’s an Art-World Precedent for the Internet’s Obsession with Cats
“Gato Barraña Galicia 2” by Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga Commons)(Lmbuga Galipedia) So 19th-century. Here’s something fascinating: A slew of cat paintings go up for bidding at the auction house Bonhams this week, and Vulture’s got a theory that it may provide insight into our current fixation with internet cats—it may actually be the reemergence […]
Posted inArtsy
This Week in Art: EDM, Crime, and Pro Grump Norm Macdonald
HarperCollins RYAN GATTIS—From the field of thrillers with literary merit, Steve Humphrey read Ryan Gattis’ new novel, All Involved, which sets a character-driven tale against the 1992 Los Angeles riots, making it a timely-as-ever social commentary: As a beleaguered nurse in All Involved ruminates, “There’s a hidden America inside the one we portray to the […]
Posted inArtsy
Coming Up in Visual Art: Keyon Gaskin, Feminist Bookstores, and Vintage Video Art
Edie Fake Edie Fake covers Kathy Acker for Feminist Bookstore. If you love feasting your eyeballs on new and strange art, don’t even think of going out of town this weekend, because there’s a slew of performances and shows opening that are more than worth your time and attention. Here are a handful of picks […]
Posted inComic Books
Local Novelist Chelsea Cain Will Write a One-Shot Comic for Marvel
Simon & Schuster Portland’s queen of darkness, novelist Chelsea Cain, announced yesterday via Twitter that she’s signed on to write a standalone Mockingbird comic for Marvel: So let’s make this official: I’m going to be writing a #Mockingbird one-shot for @Marvel. There will be murder, & some ass-kicking.— Chelsea Cain (@ChelseaCain) April 27, 2015 Given […]
Posted inBooks
Even More Kathleen Hanna: On Installation Art and The Riot Grrrl Collection
Feminist Press ABOVE: Kathleen Hanna’s filing cabinet—donated FOR HISTORY—on the cover of The Riot Grrrl Collection. When I interviewed Kathleen Hanna in advance of her lecture in Portland tomorrow, a lot was left on the proverbial cutting-room floor. Here’s what she told me about her visual art projects and helpful resources on the history of […]
Posted inArtsy
Kathleen Hanna Doesn’t Want a Riot Grrrl Revival. Neither Should We.
“I’m not interested in a revival,” says Kathleen Hanna. “I’m not interested in ‘Riot Grrrl Part Deux.’” It’s one of the first things she says when we talk on the phone ahead of her appearance in Portland, and it sounds like she’s had to say it a lot recently. Thanks to mounting nostalgia for the […]