You’re going to succumb to Disney+ whether you want to or not.
Ned Lannamann
Ned Lannamann is a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon. He writes about film, music, TV, books, travel, tech, food, drink, outdoors, and other things.
Posted inFood and Drink
Shop Local: The Greatest Gift of All Is Beer
These bottle shops are the ideal places to find something for the beer lover on your list (even if it’s you).
Posted inMusic
Shopping Local for the Record Collector or Musician in Your Life
Portland is a vinyl town. Sure, coffee, bikes, and beer get all the headlines, but record hounds know the real truth: This is a city of DJs, and it’s powered by 12-inch slabs of wax. Naturally, Portland has an embarrassment of riches as far as places to score gifts for the vinyl lover in your […]
Posted inFood and Drink
Finally, Some Good Beer News: Level Beer Is Expanding to Multnomah Village
The taps at Level Beer’s original location in Northeast Portland. A second location is scheduled to open in Southwest Portland in the new year. Elijah Hansen It’s been a bleak time in the Portland beer scene, but today Brewpublic reported a bit of good news for lovers of Portland craft beer. Level Beer, the charming […]
Posted inMovies & TV
This Month at Movie Madness, the Mercury Explores the Martin Scorsese Cinematic Universe!
This November, the greatest movie franchise in the world comes to its culmination with the release of The Irishman, a three-plus-hour, star-studded crossover event. All moviegoers love the Martin Scorsese Cinematic Universe for its colorful characters, intertwined storytelling, and recurring themes of organized crime, Catholic guilt, the Italian American experience, rock music, and really fucking […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Jazz, Cars, and Tourette’s in Edward Norton’s Movie of Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn
Glen Wilson Director/star Edward Norton’s decision to turn Jonathan Lethem’s postmodern neo-noir novel into a literal 1950s-set noir, with jazz music and vintage cars aplenty, is both an asset and a liability. Motherless Brooklyn is easy on the eyes, and the all-star cast conveys the sense—if not the suspense—of a twisty-turny mystery populated by crooks, […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Apple TV+ Is Coming. Should You Sign Up?
Hailee Steinfeld as Emily Dickinson and Wiz Khalifa as Death in Dickinson. Apple TV+ Apple TV+ officially dips its trillion-dollar toe into the streaming wars this week, with a small slate of original programming and the promise of more to come. In addition to some children’s stuff, the content available on launch day includes four […]
Posted inFood and Drink
The Portland Location of the Rock Bottom Brewpub Chain Is Closed
Google Maps Another Portland brewpub, sort of, has closed its doors, following last week’s announcement that Lompoc Brewing would be closing this week. The Portland outpost of the Denver chain brewpub Rock Bottom closed on Sunday, as first reported by Jeff Alworth on his Beervana blog and subsequently reported by the Oregonian today. There are […]
Posted inTheater & Performance
Portland Opera’s Madama Butterfly Tastefully Updates Puccini’s Problematic Masterpiece for the 21st Century
Hiromi Omura in Portland Opera’s Madama Butterfly. Cory Weaver/Portland Opera The Portland Opera kicked off its 55th season Friday night with the premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Keller Auditorium. The work, first premiered in 1904, is a tricky one to recreate respectfully in 2019—it’s an Italian opera about the transactional marriage between […]
Posted inMusic
The Sun Never Sets on the Kinks’ Brilliant Arthur
We’re well and truly in the nostalgia phase of the waning classic-rock period, with landmark albums celebrating 30th, 40th, even 50th anniversaries. And while many of those albums are preserved-in-amber snapshots of their angry young makers during angry young times, the Kinks spent the latter half of the 1960s decidedly out of fashion, ignoring the […]
Posted inFood and Drink
Lompoc Brewing Is Closing
Lompoc Brewing, one of the city’s OG brewpubs, is saying goodbye. A press release was sent out today that detailed the upcoming closure, which will happen next week on Tuesday, October 29. The Lompoc’s two pubs—5th Quadrant and Sidebar, both located on North Williams—will shut their doors, as well as the brewery itself. An affiliated […]
Posted inComedy
Ghost Busted: The Mercury Uses Science to Expose Portland’s Real-est and Fakiest Ghosts!
Portland is home to many so-called “haunted” businesses, residences, and public spaces. (See “Portland’s Most Haunted Places [That You Never Knew Were Super Fucking Haunted]!” on pg. 5 for more examples.) But how haunted are they really? The Mercury decided to find out by picking four of Portland’s most famously spooky places and testing their […]