We went out a lot this year. We saw bands, rode bikes, ate snacks—all the stuff of life. This list is a hodgepodge of experience, pulling from our culture writing team—who are drawing from both wider and ultra local scenes. This year, we saw PAM CUT join Hollywood Theatre and Clinton Street as a spot where film fans congregate, where they even dress up. The Cut’s Summer of Smut showed up in plenty of living rooms—even if it was just on a phone screen, discreetly. Via live music we mourned and sought catharsis. We sob-laughed and took inadvisable challenges. And we'll do it all again.

Ladds 500 Bike Ride

My spring bloomed this year with my physical therapist’s tacit approval—after tearing my ACL—to ride a bicycle again. What better place to start than Ladds 500, a fixed route lap relay around the beautiful Ladd Circle Park? Every April, thousands of cyclists form teams, dress up, and take the road fully from cars for an entire day. This year, the event held special meaning, since I started the year sprawled on the floor of a children’s basketball gym wailing in pain, then spent the subsequent months opioided out on my couch. At Ladd's 500 I ate hot dogs and cold shrimp passed to me, losing count of how many cycles I’d biked. The event left us daydreaming amidst the hive of participants of a bigger vision: bigger track, more traffic to block—the Joan of Arc 500? The plan: A sister event that gets the big group to expand to the wider Cesar Chavez roundabout and celebrate Portland’s most enigmatic statue too (Is it about the French? Feminism? Catholicism?). Even if it’s never officially endorsed I think this embodies the event’s mantra—It’s Spring, Let’s Do Something Stupid! CAMERON CROWELL

Related: Photo Essay: Biking in Circles at the Ladds 500

Cheeseburger Doritos

Like many things on this list, Doritos Late Night Sizzlin' Cheeseburger chips didn't begin in 2024. There have been variations on the flavor favorite from as far back as a clandestine 2009-2010 run. In the spring of this year, Kroger alone got to stock bags of the snack, as part of a Late Night chip series. We came across them during an uncharacteristically low emotional point, bought some, and immediately told our snack-interested friends—none of whom were at similar low points and one of whom responded by quoting Akon: "That girl is so dangerous." The listed serving size for 110 kcals was... 11 chips? Truly dangerous. But the taste? Mustardy with a hint of pickle, a little sweetness, and some ineffable char taste. We were in awe of the recipe testers and also knew there was no way the general snacking public would embrace this complexity on a daily basis. They probably never even got a chance, as the chips soon disappeared from shelves—but can still be found on Ebay for two times the retail price. Cheeseburger chips, it was not your time. SUZETTE SMITH

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar Costume Screening / Dress Up Night at PAM CUT

In 2021 the surrealist comedy film Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar was robbed of the theatrical release it so richly deserved. In it, co-stars and co-writers Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo (co-writers of Bridesmaids) play sheltered, Midwestern friends who take their first ever vacation to the west coast of Florida. Barb and Star is a perfect cult classic: Jamie Dornan (he of 50 Shades of Grey) sings to a seagull! There’s a horny threesome, killer mosquitoes, and TRISH (IYKYK)! The pandemic's movie theater closures pushed it to streaming, so when PAM CUT—the Portland Art Museum’s new theater on Southeast Division—screened it in September, they encouraged attendees to show up in their finest kaftans and culottes. Oh gosh, being all together like that felt like a real soul douche. PAM CUT has done a great job of selecting films that are such bliss to see with fellow superfans, so keep your eye on their Instagram for future pics. ANDREA DAMEWOOD

Summer of Smut in New York Magazine

You know something is happening in the cultural world when your book club is debating whether to read a book about horny marshmallow Peeps or opt for one about thirsty minotaurs instead of yet another fusty Pulitzer Prize winner. The cause of the literary turnabout was The Cut’s Summer of Smut, a series of articles, interviews, and lists that cast a spotlight on the spicier side of the romance book world. The buzzy series went viral as folks added a reading list to Hot Girl Summer. As eyebrows were raised and pearls were clutched, everyone and their mother downloaded heated friends-to-enemies romances, spicy romantasies, monster love stories, and tales about lascivious sentient objects. Summer is over, but to find a story that will keep you warm this winter, head to Powell’s or Portland’s own romance bookstore, Grand Gesture. MELISSA LOCKER

Horse Lords at Mississippi Studios

I've never been one to shy away from superlatives: She's the best person I know. This is the tastiest burrito I've ever eaten. Horse Lords is America's finest rock 'n' roll band. I've repeated that last one many times, based entirely on the Baltimore quartet's incredible recordings, which fuse free jazz, strange guitar tunings, math rock, dizzying polyrhythms, African music, minimalism, modular synthesis and more into a mesmeric, mind-bending sound. On July 3, they played Mississippi Studios for the first time in years and only solidified my opinion, rolling out an hour-long showcase of what’s possible when laser-guided precision and freeform spirit collide. Live and in person, Horse Lords is funkier than expected, and more fun. America’s finest rock ‘n’ roll band? Sure. And maybe America’s weirdest dance band, too. BEN SALMON

 

9-9-9 Challenge

Industry sports gambling wants to monetize the pure, dumb hubris of the American Boy™ and if we let them, our beloved pastimes will completely be taken over by boring five-part parlays. As Boys, it is our duty to resist the corporate cash grab of our culture, by maintaining that our stupid competitive spirit remains grounded in the real world. THUS, the 9-9-9 Challenge enters the picture: nine hot dogs eaten and nine beers drinken over the course of a nine-inning professional baseball game. This summer, five boys took the Amtrak up to Safeco T-Mobile Park for the Mariners vs. Phillies, and the dumbest bravest among us vowed to complete the challenge. Two innings in, he topped his dogs with onions, relish, mustard, cream cheese, laughing at how easy it was. He chugged Rainers and chased them with Miller High Life. By the third inning, a crowd gathered in the left field bleachers. A man seated in the row ahead of us all but ignored the game, cheering on our 9-9-9 challenger. By the fourth inning, the bloating came on fast. Now his so-called friends derided him, “Oh does your tummy hurt??” The challenger, halfway done with his fourth dog, finished off his fifth beer before saying, “I’m out.” Not with a bang, but with a whimper. His crowd of growing fans deflated like a 100 percent all-beef fart. The man in front of us held up his toddler, saying: “Are you really going to disappoint my boy at his first baseball game?” The failure maintained, “The beers would be easy, it’s the hot dogs that are the real problem.” This satisfied no one. The actual baseball game went on to extra innings, and the Mariners won on a walk-off walk. Those of us still in the bleachers were left with something beautiful and pure: A win for the home team, new fodder to make fun of our friend, and Cruel Intentions (1999) streaming on Tubi back at the Airbnb. Boyhood preserved—not a parlay in sight. CC

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at Revolution Hall

In the middle of the worst year in memory, I drifted out to a late August Ted Leo and the Pharmacists show at Revolution Hall. It was my fourth time seeing them, but this show was different because I was absolutely miserable for both collective and personal reasons. Ted and the boys were playing their third album, Shake the Sheets, in its entirely as part of a tour to celebrate the record's 20th anniversary release. When Ted stepped out and began the rousing opening to "Me and Mia," the whole crowd sang along to the chorus: “If you believe in something beautiful / THEN GET UP AND BE IT!" For a second, I was lifted from the mire I had been submerged in. It was nice. CORBIN SMITH

Conner O’Malley's Rap World at Hollywood Theatre

The hardest I sob-laughed this year was on September 2 at the Hollywood Theatre, during a screening and subsequent Q&A session—with stars, directors, and producers, moderated by Carrie Brownstein. What I watched that night with friends and crowded house, many of a certain age (middle), was Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar’s 60-minute Rap World, a faux documentary about three amateur musicians / soulmates about to make their debut in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, c. 2009. You can watch it right now on YouTube, but that won’t afford you the hilarious (and admittedly helpful) context of the aforementioned Q&A, which was replete with questions-that-aren’t-really-questions asked by various audience members who may have interpreted O’Malley’s aggressive comic persona as invitation to act with similar abandon; the perfect accompaniment to O’Malley’s work. DOM SINACOLA

Portland Horror Film Festival

The Portland Horror Film Festival is all about exploding heads, psychological trauma, and tons of blood. It’s also a total lovefest. Horror is a big tent with tons of subgenres, and this year’s PHFF drove home how diverse and vast it can be: Horror can mean werewolves in love or the stress of an arranged marriage. It can be as silly as a short about hot zombies, or as heavy as the terror of being queer in Russia. Literally everyone knows fear and repulsion, so everyone’s invited to the horror party. We were often treated to talks from filmmakers—Michael Granberry, the creator behind the stop-motion short Les Bêtes, discussed what it was like to bring a horde of animated, miniature grotesqueries to life. The festival is a good reminder of Portland’s vibrant film scene, with this year's jointly hosted by the Hollywood Theatre and Clinton Street. Having two long-running movie houses collaborate to celebrate up-and-coming artists was downright heartwarming, even if the hearts were sometimes ripped out of chests and dripping with blood. JOE STRECKERT

Twin Oaks Card Show at Lloyd Center

Why I started collecting trading cards is dusty and obscure, even to me. Perhaps I've run out of books to purchase, records to acquire and never play, and video games to covet. In card collectibles I found the pure rush of owning something that exists only to be owned. And the best place to look for cards in Portland is the Lloyd Center, where the traveling Twin Oaks Card Show sets up shop, at the east end of the mall, every other week. This ritual has become sacred: I take out my headphones so I can hear the odd conversations people have around me, completely void my mind of anything but the pursuit of the weirdest-looking basketball card I can come across—one with NBA All-Star John Starks painted alongside a butterfly is my current grail. CS

“Defying Gravity” in Wicked

At its core, The Wizard of Oz is about trying to make your way through a world where nothing makes sense. This year's film adaptation of the story-adjacent stage musical Wicked absolutely nailed that what-the-hell / here-we-go spirit for us in the weeks after the November election—when aficionados of equality, fair taxation, an independent judiciary, a thriving civil society, and a system of checks and balances needed to sit in a darkened theater and just absorb some freaking metaphor for a change. Cynthia Erivo's powerful delivery of the anti-authoritarian power ballad “Defying Gravity,” offered catharsis and also spectacular meme-adaptability. We're now celebrating Erivo’s triumphant final yell by laying it over a toddler having a tantrum, a leaf, or most relatable, a dumpster lid blowing in the wind. Glorious dumpster in the face of heavy weather, this is the energy required for 2025.  HR SMITH

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