{{ image:1, width:500 }} Turn Your Home Into a Tiny Desk Concert The very first installment of our sheltered-in-place Things To Do roundup made sure to shout out NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series as a must-subscribe on YouTube, and that’s still true. But in the meantime, the Tiny Desk Concert has become the most reliably […]
Books
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The Best Things to Do (While Staying Home and Staying Safe) in Portland: Thurs April 9
{{ image:1, align:center, width:500 }} Free HBO!In a move that is equal parts “Hey, you’re cooped up, enjoy some stuff we already licensed to Amazon, but for reals free this time!” and “Enjoy this taste so when we drop HBO Max next month you’ll say fuck it and stay signed up” HBO has made about […]
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Local Bookstores You Can Support During the COVID-19 Crisis
Wallace Books KATHLEEN MARIE / MERCURY STAFF You’re probably hearing a lot of “we need your help now more than ever…” fundraising pitches from local arts organizations and nonprofits, and the reality is—it’s all true. Even Powell’s has announced sizable layoffs and store closures. But there are a lot of Portland bookstores still open for […]
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John Sayles Interview: His New Novel Yellow Earth, the Boom and Bust of the Oil Industry, and How His Research Approach Has Changed
The mess Big Oil leaves behind.
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John Sayles Interview: His New Novel Yellow Earth, the Boom and Bust of the Oil Industry, and How His Research Approach Has Changed
HAYMARKET BOOKS / AUTHOR PHOTO BY RIC KALLAHER Few fiction writers understand the ripple effect that big industry can have on a community with as much depth and empathy as John Sayles. That’s been evident throughout his work, from Matewan, his 1987 film about a miners’ strike, to 2002’s Sunshine State, about a Florida island’s […]
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Jim Carrey is Coming to the Keller in May in Support of His New Book
Jim Carrey Leon Bennett Growing up, nothing could make me laugh harder than the physical-comedy genius of Jim Carrey at his peak. His off-the-wall slap-stick performances—in films like Liar, Liar, The Mask, and especially the Ace Ventura movies—were the pentacle of silly, ridiculous, fully committed comedic acting—hell, I still repeatedly quote many of his wildly […]
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Cleanness Book Review: Garth Greenwell Carries on in the Tradition of Virginia Woolf, But With A Lot More Sex
ORIETTE D’ANGELO A lot of contemporary literary fiction does nothing for me. It doesn’t attach to my brain. It’s fine. It’s not intense enough. My favorite novelist, Virginia Woolf, once wrote in an essay that “moments of great intensity” are what matter most in life and in fiction. After a funeral, she wrote in a […]
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Locke & Key Review: Netflix’s Comics Adaptation Never Quite Clicks
Christos Kalohoridis It was when I’d caught a reflection of myself in the window of the train, wiping tears off my cheek after finishing “Pop Art”—a straight-faced, heartbreaking short story about a boy and his inflatable best friend—that I realized I’d been a dumbass for waiting so long to read Joe Hill. People had been […]
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Anna Wiener Offers an Anthropological View of the Tech Industry in Her Memoir Uncanny Valley
AUTHOR PHOTO BY RUSSELL PERKINS Editor’s note: This piece was originally published by our sister paper The Stranger in Seattle. People Who Matter In East Coast Media and my social-media feed have made it very clear that we all must set aside a couple days to read Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley, a memoir about a […]
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Lidia Yuknavitch Interview: Anti-Memoir, Carrie Underwood, and the Second Vagina in Her New Short Story Collection Verge
Lidia Yuknavitch (Tues Feb 4, 7:30 pm, Powell’s City of Books, FREE, all ages) AUTHOR PHOTO BY ANDREW KOVALEV / RIVERHEAD BOOKS Lidia Yuknavitch is a creative force in Portland’s literary scene. Not only are her books award-winning best sellers, but they’re often groundbreaking, like her Oregon Book Award-winning anti-memoir The Chronology of Water, or […]
Posted inArts
Lidia Yuknavitch Interview: Anti-Memoir, Carrie Underwood, and the Second Vagina in Her New Short Story Collection Verge
“She’s burning herself to make a second vagina.”
Posted inBooks
Book Event For American Dirt Author Jeanine Cummins at Powell’s Canceled
Jeanine Cummins Joe Kennedy Jeanine Cummins, the author of the new novel American Dirt, will not be appearing at Powell’s Books this Friday as planned. Earlier today, her publisher, Flatiron Books, announced that it was canceling her entire book tour, citing concerns for Cummins’ safety. In a statement sent out by Flatiron’s publisher and president […]