The I, Anonymous Show
The long-running Portland Mercury column “I, Anonymous” is famous for asking readers to send in their most whacked-out rants and scandalous confessions—anonymously! In this special LIVE-STREAMED edition of The I, Anonymous Show, your host Kate Murphy will read some of the wildest and uncensored I, Anonymous submissions we've ever received. And even better, these secret (often very naughty) stories will be dissected and discussed by a panel of hilarious, nationally recognized comedians: Amy Miller, Sean Jordan, and Simon Gibson! So if you're looking for a night of side-splitting, jaw-dropping rants and confessions—don't miss this live-streamed edition of The I, Anonymous Show, tonight at 8 pm!
Shaolin vs. Wu Tang Livestream w/ Commentary from RZA and the Hollywood Theatre's Dan Halsted
Are you missing the Hollywood Theatre? Of course you are, you're a sane, rational human being who loves independent cinema and the sort of care in presentation that Dan Halsted and the Hollywood staff provides. Especially when they schedule outright kung fu classics like they are wont to do. Tonight (6:15 pm, $10) is a great opportunity to capture some of that magic in your living room as Dan teams up with the RZA (yes, that RZA. Bobby Digital, himself. Bong bong.) to deliver a live commentary over Shaolin vs. Wu Tang. You can ask questions to the both of them during the film as well, and speaking of which: This livestream is taken from a digital scan of Halsted's own 35mm print!
Mother's Day Brunch
The Nightwood's normal Mother's Day Brunch isn't possible for the obvious reasons, but that's not stopping Mother's Day from coming, and it's certainly not stopping brunch from being a thing, so for Mom's Day 2020, the Nightwood is serving up that classic brunch experience in to-go boxes that can be picked up curbside, or delivered to your spot on the day. The catch (and why you're reading about this on a Friday)? A proper Nightwood Mother's Day brunch for two ($55, children's portions avail. for add-on) takes time to prepare, and that means if you want to hook Mom up right, you need to think ahead, click here, and get your order in by 8 pm TODAY. Add-ons include bouquets, baked goods, and bottles of wine.
Mother's Day Meat
Maybe mom isn't feeling like a more traditional brunch experience this year. Nicky USA gets it. They're not about any kind of dainty pastel mom's day meals, no no: They want mom to savor a slab of meat. Finely seasoned, succulent, ready-to-be prepared meat, to be sure—but if you wanna kick off this socially distanced Mother's Day with a hearty shout of "Meat's back on the menu, mom!" then this special pre-made Mother's Day box—including five pounds of smoked bacon, four pounds of salami, a smoked duck breast, and CBD hemp infused bath salts (perfect for relaxing contentedly after such a meat-filled holiday) for $155, ready for pickup Fri, May 8th. Oh, wait - that's today! Better get that order in ASAP, then.
Mother's Day Pastries
Maybe she doesn't want a whole brunch, or a box of meat. Maybe she wants a brunch that is nothing but baked goods? No ham, no bacon, no eggs, no tea, just a big box of all-butter (!), hand-crafted baked goods from Grand Central Baking. Well, if you're thinking ahead (and you'd better be, this is your mother we're talking about) then put in an order today, schedule a pick-up time, and get those muffins or cupcakes or scones or cookies or all of 'em to your mom so she can spend a not-so-hasty day with her favorite tasty pastries.
Drag Queen Delivery
While some are scrambling to get their pastries delivered, Our House Portland is serving up looks, jokes, and fabulousness this Mother's Day weekend, with a whole DRAG SHOW being delivered to your door. Secure one of the limited $50 time slots for Sat-Sun May 9-10, and a small army of local queens including Bolivia Carmichaels, Summer Lynne Seasons, Honey Bea Hart, and Jenuwine Beaute will appear, lubricate the engagement with a bottle of wine, and then belt out a porch-side performance just for you and yours. Proceeds benefit the performers themselves, and Our House's general fund. Give the gift of doorfront drag this Mother's Day weekend, and help out Portland's amazing drag community while you're at it. Plus: wine! Hey!
Mother's Day Dinner & Dranks
Speaking of stylish imbibing: Mississippi Ave's Quaintrelle is here for your mom, and more specifically, here for the glass she's got in her hand, a glass that needs to never be empty on her day. What should go in that glass? Well, there's a wine window open, so that's one solution. But if you want Mother's Day to be fancy, you can order a dinner to be picked up, and add a COCKTAIL kit to it for $20, giving you everything (well... everything except the booze—but we have a handy list of curbside-friendly liquor stores RIGHT HERE for ya) you need to make some of Quaintrelle's best mixed drinks for mom on her day.
Dead to Me
Netflix's unique buddy-comedy-dramedy-suspense-thriller (with wine!) returns for another off-kilter season that, much like their breakout drama Ozark, is basically just a prime-time soap opera of the sort that used to rule network television way back in the days where network television itself ruled popular culture. Nothing that's happening in this domestic drama even remotely realistic, much less plausible, but the interplay between the characters, and the way they keep getting in each other's way, breaking shit, trying to fix it, failing, and then succeeding in spite of themselves anyway is pretty engrossing, and is especially so when its top-of-their-game Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini anchoring the show. Top off your goblet with some alcoholic grape juice and catch up with a binge of Dead to Me's first season before jumping into the new one, which premieres tonight.
Lady Bird
Watching Lady Bird (now streaming, Amazon Prime Video and Kanopy through MultCo Library) is kind of like reopening your high school yearbook for the first time in years, wincing and smiling in equal measure. Writer/director Greta Gerwig (in her feature debut) reworks the coming-of-age narrative with depth, nuance, and striking beauty. Throughout, Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) clashes with her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf), an overworked psychiatric nurse who’s struggling to support the family after her husband loses his job. Few films attempt to validate the trials of teenage girls, but Gerwig handles the McPhersons’ financial distress and Lady Bird’s miniature revolutions with equal seriousness. Gerwig’s directorial debut is sweet, tragic, and sentimental, which is exactly how a coming-of-age movie should be. CIARA DOLAN
The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead won about every award an author could possibly win after the publication of The Underground Railroad, an un-put-downable piece of historical science fiction that exceeded even its own extremely high expectations. He pulled in the MacArthur "Genius" Grant, the National Book Award, the Whiting Award, and the Pulitzer Prize—a feat so rare, we don't even have an EGOT-type acronym for it. And now he's become only the fourth writer in Pulitzer history to win the Prize for fiction twice, with his most recent novel, The Nickel Boys (avail in ebook and audiobook form at MultCo Library; Hardcover avail at Powells, $24.95), about a group of Black boys trying to survive a horrific reform school experience in Jim Crow-era Florida. If you haven't gotten a chance to read it yet, do yourself a favor and catch up! RICH SMITH
LeVar Burton Reads
While you're in a reading mood, we should probably remind you of this ongoing slice of gold: LeVar Burton is one of the only reasons Twitter is still worth visiting, and stuff like this is precisely why. Three days a week, he will livestream from his Twitter account, and read stories to you. Mondays at 9am will be for the kids, Wednesdays at 3pm will be for the young adults, and Fridays at 6pm (that's tonight!) will be for the grownups. If you miss it, though, don't sweat it: He's got a whole podcast dedicated to just this purpose, featuring hours upon hours of fine short stories delivered in his dulcet tones. Subscribe, and make your self-quarantine instantly 48% more bearable, at the least.
