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Good Morning, Portland! It’s gonna be a skootch warmer today than yesterday, but other than that, we’re basically twinning with the weather we’ve had since Monday. Portland fall, everybody! Expect rain Saturday—which could impact No Kings: Vote Early gatherings, but Willamette Valley weather is a little capricious, so that could easily skootch to Sunday. This intro is brought to you by SKOOTCH, a word that means “a little” or “change a little.”
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Portland Fire & Rescue would like you to know that—as of today, October 15—the Portland Fire & Rescue Fire Marshal’s Office has lifted the burn ban it issued for the City of Portland in July. Hell yes; bonfire season is go!
• City officials want a nonprofit that sorts recycled cans and pays out the 10-cent-per-can return to gatherers to move from under the Morrison Bridge by January 31, 2027. Reporting by the Oregonian‘s Lillian Mongeau Hughes gets into the People’s Depot’s once-allowed service and the roadblocks its encountered as it tried to move into a brick and mortar home.
• Yesterday, the Mercury Election Strikeforce released its endorsements for the upcoming November election, including a guide to ranked choice voting and a handy-dandy voting cheat sheet for those in a hurry. You can read all the hot election goss measured candidate takes online or in print around Portland now (!), along with all our other fun Halloween stuff.
• A Portland-based tech accessory manufacturer, Elevation Lab, issued an apology on Tuesday, announcing it would discontinue a product called Silencer, which was created to hide automatic notifications displayed by AirTag trackers. Silencer was only sold for a few days before Elevation Lab was made aware that the product would be perfect for stalking. In its defense, the tech company expressed “We have always made products we want for ourselves, and this was no different – we wanted it for AirTags on our bikes. (Some of us here have bikes more valuable than our cars.)” Imagine that—having a bike more expensive than your car, but not knowing one woman. Good on ’em, tho.
• So, let me get this straight—you’re trying to tell me that I can’t fly my little sea plane wherever I damn well please? Federal aviation regulators are trying to figure out the circumstances surrounding a Friday airplane takeoff from the Willamette River. The wobbly lifting was captured by Panic, Inc. co-founder Cabel Sasser who dutifully bleeted that vid out to the masses. The Oregonian‘s Jonathan Bach gets a little further into the vociferous pilot debate which has subsequently ensued. Let me sum up: If crisis, then maybe? If not, then maybe.
• Speaking of surreal, Portland theater Shaking the Tree just opened its adaptation of a collection of contentious Caryl Churchill plays titled Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. We previewed this idea in the Fall Arts issue, and now Robert Ham reviews the show, writing “Churchill intended these for short plays to be presented together, connecting as they are by themes intrinsic to her work: the long history of violence against women and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of a senseless world.”
• On the subject of ominous, in Milwaukie you’ll find a family mausoleum, a funeral carriage drawn by skeleton horses, a crypt keeper, and a gigantic spider—all in the yard of a suburban home. If you love profiles on local over-the-top seasonal decorations this one on the Davis Graveyard is a spectacle to behold.
• This week’s Mercury Music Picks features a pretty indie-heavy moody mix of shows, which seems to fit the season-changing, Venus-in-retrograde moment we’re finding ourselves in collectively. Starly Lou Riggs has the details on shows to check out this week, including Renny Conti’s somber folk, Kerry Politzer’s Brazilian jazz, and Seffarine’s recordings from a Moroccan oasis town.
• Today in ugly stuff: I can’t tell if this is a marketing push, or if people actually like this discontinued PDX airport carpet fleece idea. Columbia Sportswear plans to release a limited line of fleece pullover zips to celebrate 35 years of its Helvetia fleece pullover, and this is merely the first. Fans or scalpers wanted these bad, and the company announced that a member-only early access presale sold out in under five minutes. If you love to fight, there’s an impromptu fight club a limited number available this morning at the Columbia Portland Flagship Store, 911 SW Broadway, beginning at 10 am. And remember, if it’s your first time at the Columbia Sportswear Flagship Store, you have to fight!
IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Y’know, sometimes you practice (?) international law say you’re a lawyer for a decade or so, and then one day a journalist is like where did you pass the bar? And if you’re the new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia you reply: “When I moved to China.” And then a journalist points out that “China’s notoriously difficult National Unified Legal Professional Qualification Examination can only be taken by Chinese citizens.” Ack! Right? Zacharia’s background and resume have come under perfectly ordinary scrutiny for someone who is the public face of the executive branch of the US federal government. And now the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are reporting that Zacharia has not passed the bar exam in California, though she has tried. Oh no! It turns out that misrepresenting yourself as a lawyer in Zacharia’s home state of California is not legal! At least one watchdog group says it has asked the California State Bar to investigate.
• On the subject of fraud, everyone’s favorite podcast Criminal recently aired a two-part episode about Fritz Klenner, a man who sort of hung out in his father’s medical office until everyone just assumed he, too, was a doctor. Klenner practiced for a number of years, and then he did a bunch of murders. Criminal fans may also want to know a live version of the podcast is coming through Portland on December 15. That’ll probably sell out. The promo materials are hinting it’s about the host’s family secrets.
• The US Department of Justice(DOJ) is demanding that California election officials prove the US citizenship of thousands of voters that it has “flagged” as potential noncitizens. The DOJ says this is part of an effort to expunge alleged voter fraud, but the LA Times is calling it a pressure campaign that could deny eligible voters their a ballot in November.
• News stories like this are a special interest of mine. The headline is “All US Postal Service locations to close for multiple days in November,” which sounds pretty ominous, right? Well, the story is actually a reminder that November brings two mail holidays, Veterans Day (Nov 11) and Thanksgiving (Nov 26). You could admonish this clickbait headline, but—to me—the surrounding situation is more about how print page design used to elegantly hold useful information, and web design has had DECADES to become good, yet remains an utter fucking failure. Imagine this reminder as a wee sidebar, tucked somewhere on B1 or C1—a gesture of goodwill! Instead it has to be its own story and therefore 250 words. Allow me to offer this hypothesis: The shortcomings of web page design are just as responsible for the rise of cult-of-personality internet icons as enshittification and reality TV.
• Give some likes to this Adam Pasi appearance on Comics Unleashed. After 20 minutes of trying to figure out if we can actually stream the full episode someplace, I have given up on trying to figure it out and chocked it up to my millennial disinterest in broadcast TV. Pasi headlines a free show Saturday at Covert Cafe, which seems way better than watching TV, TBH.
