Portland Mercury

Once in a Dead Moon

Audrey Vann — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:00:00 -0700

Toody Cole on Harmonies, Hardship, and Why She’s Back Onstage

by Audrey Vann

I once found myself sitting at a bar beside Toody Cole and told her that she was my all-time favorite bassist, to which she blushed and said, “Thank you, I’m trying really hard, and I practice a lot.”

A telling response from a humble punk veteran who is far too cool to play it cool. Over the past five decades, Toody and her dearly departed husband, Fred, have kept Portland's music scene alive with their bands—Dead Moon, the Rats, Pierced Arrows, and many others—self-recording and self-releasing music in their self-built Clackamas County home. While it’s easy to take one look at Dead Moon’s drippy font and iconic skull logo and assume that their music is raucous, dark, and speedy, you might be surprised to find the tenderness that runs beneath, exemplified on vulnerable, slow-paced tracks like “Where Did I Go Wrong” and “It’s O.K.”

At the center of Toody and Fred’s projects has always been love: love for the community, love of music, and love for one another. Even in one of their most pissed-off songs, 1994’s “Poor Born,” Fred sings lovingly, “I’ve got a woman who still makes me crazy with the shake of her nightgown.” I caught up with Toody Cole over the phone ahead of her show at Star Theater with bandmates Kelly Halliburton and Christopher March (of Jenny Don’t and The Spurs).

Portland Mercury: I emailed you for this interview through the contact on the Dead Moon website. Do you run the site, merch, and press inquiries on your own?

Toody Cole: Yeah baby, I’m still DIY all the way! It has pretty much always been my gig. And, shit, I turned 77 in December. I'm retired now, and while it's great to kick back, I'm still used to being busy. So, it’s just something to do, and it doesn't take up that much of my time. It's cool because I can do whatever I want or not do anything at all, depending on how I feel.

I was listening to an interview you gave in 2019, and you said, “I’ve always had it in my head ‘70 years old, and I’m done.’” I assume you changed your mind?

I'm as vain as anybody. I just thought that I would look too old, and I didn’t want to get on stage. But at some point, I got past that and just went, “What the hell!” and got back on stage. The more I look at old pictures, the more I go, “Fuck, I look great!” But the coolest thing is that it still feels just the same to get up on stage. It's not easy to do anymore—it takes a lot of work and prep time to make it happen.

What got you back into playing shows?

When I lost Andrew [Loomis, Dead Moon’s drummer, who passed away in 2016] and Fred, followed by the pandemic, wildfire evacuations, and a huge ice storm, I looked up at the sky and thought, God, what next? It was like a domino effect. But, in 2023, Eric Isaacson (who runs Mississippi Records and reissues the Dead Moon LPs) had a 20th-anniversary party for the shop and asked if I would perform. I had the idea to do a retrospective of songs written by Fred from all the bands we had been in together. I figured it would just be a one-off. But I guess the set came off really, really well. I'm not used to this whole social media thing—I don’t check it out, I don’t do it, I don’t post it, you know, whatever. But that's like all anybody does right now. So, as soon as videos from the show got posted, I got a flood of messages saying, “Oh my God, you're back playing again?” and offering gigs.

After that, I did a few local shows and got together with Kelly Halliburton and Christopher March from Jenny Don’t and the Spurs. It just fell together. At this point, Jenny takes care of all the bookings and detailed work for the band. I just resigned myself to booking a bunch of shows this year. This might be the last time I want to do it, I don't know.

How does it feel to play Dead Moon songs with different musicians, without Andrew and Fred?

Well, I'm not a songwriter—Fred wrote all the songs. I wish I had that talent. I really respect it. To me, his lyrics are amazing and timeless. People still love to hear his stuff, so I’m just doing the best that I can. It’s not as good as the two of us together, that’s for sure! One of my good friends said, “Man, know what I really miss? You and Fred’s harmonies together.” That’s what I miss, too. It’s just something that can’t be duplicated, and thank God for that. It was the special ingredient.

What advice would you give to couples wanting to create art together?

There are a lot of people who can and a lot of people who can’t. I think one of the reasons that it worked so well for us was the fact that I wasn’t a songwriter—there was no competition on that particular artistic level. Fred was pretty much the only reason I ended up playing music. He talked me into it, showed me how to play bass, and it just kind of grew from there. I got bit by the bug. I ended up loving being on stage. For me, it was more about performing in front of people and feeling that vibe, rather than getting satisfaction from writing a great song. We were both really good at different things.

We were an incredibly great partnership. I did all the paperwork and 90 percent of the business for the band: taking care of booking, hotels, flights, tour managing, and dealing with the money. Because of that, Fred got royalties from his songs. He never would have gone through that on his own. Some people are just too artistic to worry about money. So, anyway, we had everything handled between the two of us. That’s why that worked. It was a really unique situation.

What was your first time on stage like?

My first show was with The Rats in 1977 or ’78, just doing punk-rock stuff. Fred had just started playing electric guitar on stage—before that, he was on lead vocals with The Weeds and The Lollipop Shoppe. I had only been playing bass for a couple of weeks, and our drummer was this kid who had never played drums before. [laughs] One night, while we were rehearsing together and having a drink, Fred said, “Oh, by the way, I got us a gig—we’re playing a house party on Friday.” I was like, “What!? I can’t do that, no way!” And he goes, “No, it’ll be fine. Get a couple of beers in you, and you’ll be great.” That was my first gig. It was in somebody's little teeny bar or front room or whatever, in front of about five to 10 people.

Were there any musicians whom you were looking up to or emulating at the time?

Oh yeah. Greg Sage, man, the Wipers! A lot of my bass-playing style was influenced greatly by Dave Koupal, the bass player of the Wipers.

Between the Rats and Dead Moon, you released a solo single of Brenda Lee’s “Coming on Strong” and “Rather Be Your Lover,” written by Fred. How did that single come about?

Well, that happened because Fred was playing with his country group, the Western Front, at that time. We had broken up the Rats, and I got to a point where my kids weren’t quite grown yet. My younger son was around 12 or 13, and he guilt-tripped me about going out of town and not being around. So I told Fred, “I’m done.” He ended up kind of messing around with country music and got the Western Front together. I would sing with those guys off and on. And that’s how the Toody single happened. I love singing country, but it’s not as exciting to play on stage, which is one of the reasons we left it behind and started Dead Moon.

I know that Fred was heavily inspired by seeing the Ramones to start the Rats. Was there a similar event that inspired the start of Dead Moon?

Fred wanted to go back to his roots and play rock ’n’ roll again. You know, real rock ’n’ roll, like the stuff he was doing with the Weeds and the Lollipop Shoppe. We got started by playing covers and a few of his older songs. Fred quickly got inspired and wrote so much incredible material in the first three years. From there, we got picked up locally, just from the reputation of our previous bands. The Wipers had started touring in Europe, and Hans Kesteloo (who ended up signing us to his label Music Maniac Records in Germany) hounded Greg Sage, saying, “You’re living in Portland, right? Do you know Fred Cole?” So that’s how that connection happened. It’s just so weird. Everything seemed fated. It just fell into place.

I love that Dead Moon has some really pissed-off songs followed by some really sweet, tender songs, like the first album, when “Out on a Wire” goes into Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Was that intentional?

Fred was always looking for material for me to sing before he started writing songs with me in mind to do the lead vocals. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” just kind of happened. At some point, we started playing it live, and I don’t know, maybe we used it because we needed filler on the album. For whatever reason, my version of that song just caught on. Everybody loves hearing it.

Mixing the hard and the hopeful, the light and the dark, and that girly vocal thing, added a whole new dimension to Dead Moon. It’s what Fred used to call a roller coaster—he’d make set lists based on it. He liked to hit the audience hard at the beginning and the end. In the middle, we would build it up, and then bring it back down into a ballad or something slow, or start all over again. He totally learned it from watching punk-rock bands. You know, when everything’s BAM! BAM! BAM! in your face, the effect wears off. Fred was an amazingly multifaceted individual, and he felt everything—you can tell just by the way he carried off his vocals. Every feeling was equally important to him.

See Toody Cole with Forty Feet Tall and Chatterbox at the Star Theater on Mar 17 at 8 pm.

Ticket Alert: Grupo Frontera, Yebba, and More Portland Events Going On Sale This Week

EverOut Staff — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 13:00:00 -0700

Plus, AJR and More Event Updates for March 12

by EverOut Staff

It’s time to put your “fun” budget to work with the latest round of show announcements. Latin Grammy winners Grupo Frontera bring regional Mexican songs to Portland. R&B singer Yebba supports her recently released sophomore album on her first headlining tour. Plus, indie pop trio AJR will say What No One’s Thinking at the Bend amphitheater. Read on for details on those and other newly announced events.

ON SALE FRIDAY, MARCH 13

MUSIC

AJR
Hayden Homes Amphitheater (Wed July 8)

Arlo Parks – Desire Tour
Wonder Ballroom (Wed Sept 23)

Bahamas: Industrial Sport & Sound Tour
Revolution Hall (Wed Nov 4)

FREE TICKETS THURSDAY: Win Tix to Lacuna Coil, Jacqueline Novak, The Wonder Years, and MORE!

Mercury Promotions — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 11:30:00 -0700

by Mercury Promotions

Who's ready to have some fun? Well, the Mercury is here to help with FREE TICKETS to see some of Portland's best concerts and events; our way of saying thanks to our great readers and spread the word about some fantastic upcoming performances! (Psst... if you want to say thanks to the Mercury, please consider making a small monthly contribution to keep us alive and kickin'!) And oh boy, do we have some fun events coming at ya this week! CHECK IT OUT!

Enter to WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to Depths of Wikipedia on March 20 at Revolution Hall!

Depths of Wikipedia visits Revolution Hall on March 20th! Join creator Annie Rauwerda on a journey through Wikipedia’s most interesting corners. You’ll have the time of your life. Get your tickets now or enter to win a free pair!

Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, Fri March 20, 7 pm, $32.21+, All Ages

Enter to WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to Nothing on March 21 at Revolution Hall!

Nothing plays Revolution Hall on March 21st! Shoegaze renegades hailing from Philly, Nothing returns to Portland with their most ambitious record yet: A Short History of Decay. Get your tickets now or enter to win a free pair!

Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, Sat March 21, 7 pm, $34.26, All Ages

Enter to WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to Jacqueline Novak on March 21 at Aladdin Theater!

Jacqueline Novak visits Aladdin Theater on March 21st! Following multiple sold out appearances in Portland, NY comedian Jacqueline Novak returns to the Aladdin stage once more with hilarious, edgy stand-up material! Get your tickets now or enter to win a free pair!

Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie, Sat March 21, 8 pm, $50.14+, All Ages

Enter to WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to The Wonder Years on March 24 at Revolution Hall!

The Wonder Years plays Revolution Hall on March 24th! Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of No Closer To Heaven, Pennsylvania rock band The Wonder Years visits Portland to play the album in its entirety! Get your tickets now or enter to win a free pair!

Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, Tues March 24, 7 pm, $44.27, All Ages

Enter to WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to see Cosmic Princess Anime Rave on March 27 at McMenamins Lola's Room!

Enter a world beyond the stars—a realm glowing with electric pink skies, cosmic moons, floating sakura petals, and the radiant energy of the Cosmic Princess herself. K-Pop, J-Pop, Hyperpop & Future Bass all night. Cosplay welcome—glow accessories encouraged. Get ready for a high-energy fusion of anime aesthetics and K-pop culture. Get your tickets now or enter to win a free pair!

McMenamins Lola's Room, 1332 West Burnside, Fri March 27, 8 PM, $22.25, 21+

Enter to WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to see Heated Rivalry Jockstar Rave on April 3 at McMenamins Crystal Ballroom!

From the closet? Ice? Dance floor. A night of Party Boy anthems & club hits. Get your tickets now or enter to win a free pair!

McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, 1332 West Burnside, Fri April 3, 8 PM, $21.25+, 21+

Enter to WIN TWO FREE TICKETS to see Lacuna Coil on April 5 at McMenamins Crystal Ballroom!

With Lacuna Coil’s latest album, Sleepless Empire, they create a place that is dark, cinematic, and unmistakably true to the unique characteristics that have given Lacuna Coil such a celebrated entry in the annals of heavy music. Get your tickets now or enter to win a free pair!

McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, 1332 West Burnside, Sun April 5, 7:30 PM, $39.99+, All Ages

GOOD LUCK! Winners will be notified on Monday, and check back next week for more FREE TIX from the Mercury.

POP QUIZ PDX: The Idiots of ICE, Demolishing Ice Rinks, and a Very Funny Joke About Vanilla Ice

Wm. Steven Humphrey — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:30:00 -0700

See how well YOU score on this week's super fun local trivia quiz!

by Wm. Steven Humphrey

HELLO AGAIN, SMARTY BOTTOM! It's time to put your brainy-brain to the test with this edition of POP QUIZ PDX—our local, sassy-ass trivia quiz. And this week we'll see how much YOU know about the idiots of ICE, ice skating rinks, and ice ice babies! Actually I forgot to include a Vanilla Ice question in the actual quiz, so here's one for you now:

Question: What did Vanilla Ice call his new business in which he teaches Microsoft Office to people’s parents?

Answer: "Word to Your Mother." 🥁😃

Hmm. Okay, anyway... so how did you do on our last quiz? Hurrah, you did great! However, I am shocked... SHOCKED!... that more of you didn't choose "J.Lo sitting on top of a lion" cake in our subjective question. Please reexamine your cake priorities!

Anywaaaaaay... READY TO START? Take this week's quiz below, take our previous pop quizzes here, and come back next week for a brand spankin' new quiz! (Having a tough time answering this quiz? It's probably because you aren't getting Mercury newsletters! HINT! HINT!) Now crank up that cerebellum, because it's time to get BRAINY!

Create your own user feedback survey

Did you enjoy that? Take our past Pop Quizzes HERE!

Good Morning, News: Global Oil Prices Soar, Former Trail Blazer Running for Governor... Again, and Is This "Scathing Rebuttal" Just Good Boundaries?

Suzette Smith — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 09:30:00 -0700

by Suzette Smith

If you appreciate the Mercury's interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution to support our editorial team. Your donation is tax-deductible. You can also subscribe and have our papers delivered!

[In an extremely Charge Nurse Dana Evans voice] Good Morning, Portland! Get tha 2026 Spring Arts Guide, starting today. It was on stands as early as yesterday, to tell you the truth, but we always put it online on Thursday so people don't send us emails lookin' for it. By today, you can find it at over 500 locations in the Portland area. Do you need to hear about the weather? It's raining. Less windy. Let's get to the news.

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• This week Nike co-founder Phil Knight gave $1 million to a Republican candidate running for Oregon governor—Chris Dudley, a former NBA basketball player and Portland Trail Blazer, who also notoriously ran against former governor John Kitzhaber in 2010. Dudley has been called "a political outsider," meaning he had no governing experience. After Kitzhaber won, Dudley "kept a relatively low public profile in the 15 years since," as the Oregonian puts it. That's a euphemism for still has no experience holding political office.

• No matter your political leanings, this year's election season is looking like it'll be a slog for Gov. Tina Kotek. She just lost three senior staffers, OPB reports. Kotek thanked the departing workers in a statement and noted that the conclusion of the annual legislative session is "a time of transition," telegraphing that this is an ordinary time for staff to change positions/campaigns. It's not like in 2024, when Kotek's office weathered some high-profile resignations. This = normal.

• I heard about this "scathing rebuttal" that City Council president Jamie Dunphy shared on his personal social media yesterday, but here in the stark light of morning—unable to decipher what this note even says—it does seem somewhat appropriate to respond: "No. Mind your own business and keep your small-minded opinions about other peoples bodies to yourself,” as Dunphy did. Much has been made of the age of the person who sent the note. Don't be ageist. It's not okay to comment on people's bodies, and it is okay to firmly let people know that's unacceptable behavior.

• If you've been on the internet before, you've heard the "nice v kind" argument. Well Black Byline columnist Donovan Scribes has some more knowledge to put down on the concept—as he examines a recent cringeworthy exchange during a Metro Council meeting and how it exemplifies the pitfalls of being "Portland Nice."

• But not all pits white people fall into need to be bad. Mercury Music Picks points out there's lot's of pit fruit playing Portland this week (Peaches and Cherry Cheeks). Are there any shows on the docket for TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT? YEAH. Seffarine at Alberta Rose and a Lo Steele's free record release at Music Millennium. All this and more in the Mercury Music Picks pit!

• Don't sleep on this pretty, goofy, mischievous new game from the Untitled Goose Game folks. We reviewed it (!) in the Spring Arts Guide (!), but I finally bullied our social media person into making a short video to show off the scenery.

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• WYD tonight? Lindsay Costello recommends The Gleaners and I at Hollywood Theatre in this week's Do This, Do That. "Agnès Varda's sprightly late-career documentary follows foragers of all forms, from dumpster diggers to oyster scavengers, while drifting into meditations on waste and art."

• The Blazers loss to the Charlotte Hornets Tuesday night was a comedy of errors. The errors: 19 turnovers, numerous misses of easy shots, and some interesting refereeing. Read what Mercury contributor Cameron Crowell thought of the shenanigans, and we'll hold out breath for Friday's matchup against the Jazz.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Iran claimed responsibility for an attack on two oil tankers, located in Iraq's Basra port, on Thursday morning. The two vessels, which exploded into massive towers of smoke and flame, were in the process of transporting petroleum products. The New York Times reported that one was owned by an American company. The strike has forced Iraqi authorities to halt the oil terminal's operations, which has led to a lot of reporting on the havoc this is playing on global fossil fuel prices, but it also seems like we could be talking about the environmental impact.

• Countries around the world are releasing their oil reserves, attempting to cut off price gouging and inflation as a major oil-production area of the globe is suddenly, avoidably at war. The prices continue to surge.

• On Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom sought to sooth constituent concerns, responding a warning from the FBI that Iran may seek to attack the West Coast with drones as retaliation for the war Trump's administration has waged there. “We’ve been aware of that information. ... It’s all about a posture of preparedness for worst-case scenarios,” the governor said.

• Today in kind of nice if true:

Republicans fear that further attacks on vaccines could harm the party during the midterms, according to reports.

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— Ars Technica (@arstechnica.com) March 12, 2026 at 9:02 AM

• Today in released internal messages, the people you were pretty sure didn't respect you have been found to not respect you.

Ticketing employees at Live Nation called fans “so stupid” for paying inflated charges and boasted that they were “robbing them blind baby,” according to internal messages released in the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against the concert giant that includes Ticketmaster.

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— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) March 12, 2026 at 9:20 AM

• Now get out there and explain everything you're doing like you're on Jujutsu Kaisen.

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Mikki Gillette’s Riot Queens Requires Us to Read More Queer History

Holly Hazelwood — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 07:30:00 -0700

Even if you live in a city as queer-friendly as Portland, being a trans person is a political act. by Holly Hazelwood

Even if you live in a city as queer-friendly as Portland, being a trans person is a political act. In many ways, trans people in the Rose City exist in rarefied air, insulated from the cruelties and hardships of the US’ rampant, systemic hatred of trans people, to the point where even the clockiest of trans folks can forget what it’s like to be harassed, misgendered, and openly reviled (which is said from a surprising amount of experience).

Riot Queens, a small, trans-driven play that recently opened at the Back Door Theater in Southeast Portland serves as a dire reminder that the relative comfort we experience now is hard-won—and still under attack.

Playwright Mikki Gillette—described once as “the Joan of Arc of the trans community in Portland theatre” by actor and critic Bobby Burmea—sets the work in the lead-up to and immediate aftermath of the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. We’re dropped into the lives of four trans people practically begging the world to care about their pain, but with very different ways of approaching a brighter future.

Our window into the world is Nina, played with a charmingly effortless, doe-eyed optimism by Bryn Bollimpalli. New to San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, Nina is beset on all sides by trans people who wish to imbue her with their own outlook on trans liberation.

First comes Haley (Ethan Fieder), a blonde proto-doomer whose guiding principle is “keep your head down and just live the life you’re given,” which, as we learn, is a defense mechanism. On the opposite end are Dixie (Nineveh Herrera) and Jerry (Cosmo Reynolds), leaders of an organization that seeks to make trans lives less dangerous. Their motivations and traumas feel all-too real, and the production’s majority-trans cast means you know much of their pain is more real than we know.

Many things about Riot Queens work well: The actors sank into their roles, feeling more and more naturalistic and confident as the performance went on. You can expect the occasional odd line delivery that sometimes accompanies community theater—especially shows accessible through the back door of a coffee shop. We saw the show on opening night, so glitches felt almost inevitable. However, the intimate 40-seat theater and queer-heavy audience lent a surprisingly uplifting energy to moments in the play where audience members shouted trans liberation slogans alongside the characters.

Riot Queens spends a good amount of its two-hour runtime explaining the factors that led to the titular riot, but once the event arrives, everything feels like it’s over in the blink of an eye. The riot is a backdrop, rather than a focal point, to the lives of these people, and the audience must self-educate—before or after—to fully understand a historical context that the work itself sometimes forgets to provide.

In spite of that, Riot Queens is a must-see for old and young queer Portlanders alike, especially younger trans people of our city, who can easily lose sight of the fact that even places as similarly queer-friendly as San Francisco were once battlegrounds, with non-cis people constantly facing the threat of police violence for simply existing at a diner or walking down the street. Thankfully, though, it’s also a reminder that though things can feel dark, the future we’re fighting for is right around the corner.

Fuse Theatre Ensemble presents Riot Queens at Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne, through March 29, $25 or pay as you’re able, more info, mature audiences

The Mercury's 2026 Spring Arts Preview: We Need Art to Survive

Suzette Smith — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 04:00:00 -0700

You don’t have to have an art focus to benefit from art. by Suzette Smith

It was staff writer Lindsay Costello who inspired this issue’s theme. During a new year discussion about our team’s goals, she mentioned: “More and more, I am realizing that we need art to survive.”

The phrase seemed deeply relevant, working in two ways: We need art to survive for our personal enrichment and enjoyment. We need art to survive for its own longevity, so it can be around for us and those who come after us.

2025 was difficult for everyone—seriously, show me whose life has been made easier by the second Trump presidency; even his allies are anxiety-sweating through their sheets—but the chaos of sudden, massive cuts to National Endowment for the Arts and other government programs shook arts and culture institutions who had come to rely on and take pride in that funding.

“Once you hit that high standard, it’s a signal to other funders that you’ve made it,” Brian Weaver, artistic director at Portland Playhouse, told the Mercury for a piece in this guide. His theater learned their grant was cancelled on opening night of a show. An even larger theater, Portland Center Stage (PCS), is still trying to close the gap, trying to raise $9 million by June.

This spring, both Playhouse and PCS will team up to stage a Tony-nominated Broadway show which reimagines Hamlet—Shakespeare’s sulky prince of Denmark—as a queer, Black southern kid at a backyard cookout. Fat Ham is a test to see if this sort of collaboration can prove profitable for both companies and if audiences can accept endings that celebrate joy over tragedy.

Because we need art to survive.

Look into the gaze of the child on the cover of this issue. She’s proud. She’s hopeful. She’s getting a little bored with standing in first position. It’s Mercury reporter Taylor Griggs at age three! With her permission, we seized upon this photo for its truly monumental vibes.

Griggs is an incisive journalist, but there’s an undeniably creative side to her, too. In her youth, she tried out different performing arts (ballet was short-lived) and gravitated towards those that involved singing with others. “I think there’s something particularly special and meaningful about creating art with other people,” Griggs said. That’s one of the things that drew her to profile a group of graphic designers working to open a downtown design library called Volumes.

News editor Courtney Vaughn also contributed to the issue, writing up a profile of queer wrestling variety show House of Danger. Asked about her love for the sport, she said: “Pro wrestling isn’t a typical sport. In the eyes of many non-enthusiasts, it’s not even a sport, but for those who watch and participate, it crosses the athletic threshold into something that’s equal parts physical, theatrical, and magical.”

It‘s ordinary enough for those on the culture team to profess our devotion to the local arts scene—it is our bread and butter. So to have the news team join this spring charge felt aligned with what we’re trying to put down. Art is an avenue to joy, contemplation, teamwork, and much more. You don’t have to have an art focus to benefit.

Reporter Jeremiah Hayden saw something interesting in the book he reviewed for this issue. When we handed him Kevin Sampsell’s new novel—surprisingly, only Sampsell's second—we had no clue we were handing our homelessness and housing reporter a work he would hail for its refreshing, intentional view of street life. “Sampsell’s book, like much of the literature I love, serves as a place to challenge common sense and look at the world through fresh eyes,” Hayden noted. “Is that not what art is supposed to do?”

Suzette Smith,

Mercury Arts & Culture Editor

See everything in the collection here. Find a print paper here! If you haven't signed up for a subscription or regular contribution, we can do that for you too.

The Save Lloyd Campaign Wants Some Say in What Happens to Lloyd Center Mall

Joe Streckert — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:56:00 -0700

This might be the last year for Lloyd Center.

by Joe Streckert

This might be the last year for Lloyd Center. There’s a plan for what’s next, but a community that’s grown in the mall in recent years isn’t happy with it or the process of deciding Lloyd Center’s future.

Urban Renaissance, the real estate development group that partly owns the mall, has a vision for what comes after demolition. The group’s Lloyd Center Central City Master Plan wipes the venerable mall from the map in favor of development that will be familiar to most Portlanders: an intersecting street grid with green space and mixed-used architecture.

One of the plan’s central points is that Lloyd Center is “inward facing” and “auto-oriented.” The current structure interrupts the street grid and continuity of the neighborhood, and shows the outside world massive concrete walls instead of human-scaled shops and apartments. Future development would potentially change that, replacing the Lloyd Center “superblock” with a more conventional grid.

However, many of the people and businesses who have made Lloyd Center their workplace and/or third place are not happy with the plan.

NEA Cuts: One Year Later

Abe Asher — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:54:00 -0700

Five local arts organizations on coping with the chaos of cancelled National Endowment for the Arts grants.

by Abe Asher

When Donald Trump reassumed the presidency in January of 2025, arts organizations around the country anticipated changes at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)—particularly those the president accused of having a “woke agenda.” But they were not prepared for the chaos that would quickly develop.

Last spring, numerous organizations, including in Portland, received emails stating that their NEA grants—provisionallly approved before Trump took office—were canceled. Portland Playhouse, a longtime recipient of NEA money, learned about the fate of its grant on opening night of its spring show, John Turner’s Come and Gone.

Now, nearly a year later, a wide array of Portland theaters, museums, and dance companies are trying to get by without NEA support they’d counted on for years, amid a broader federal decline in support for the arts. Here’s a look at how several of them are navigating the current landscape.

See everything in the 2026 Spring Arts Guide collection here. Find a print paper here! If you haven't signed up for a subscription or regular contribution, we can do that for you too.

Portland Playhouse

Prior to last year’s opening night grant cancellation, Portland Playhouse had received NEA funding for ten consecutive years—a feat that served as a clear signal of the theater’s quality, said artistic director Brian Weaver.

“Ten years ago when we got our first NEA grant, it was a really big deal—and it leads to other funding, because once you hit that high standard, it’s a signal to other funders that you’ve made it,” Weaver said.

Weaver said the theater is preparing another grant application this year and is attempting to tailor it to fit the NEA’s new, nationalistic priorities—all while staying true to a vision that is “intentionally antiracist.” In the meantime, the theater is counting largely on individual donations to fill the gap left by the NEA and a decrease in state funding.

Artists Repertory Theatre

Aiyana Cunningham, managing director of Artists Repertory Theatre (ART), was at a conference in Minneapolis last spring when news began landing in her colleagues’ inboxes that their NEA grants would not be paid—an experience she called “chilling.”

ART itself did not have an NEA grant canceled, but the theater had been a consistent recipient of NEA funding before that—recieving eight grants between 2007 and 2022. Now, however, the days of that kind of support appear over.

Cunningham said the loss of NEA funding is just one piece of a larger problem facing the city.

“If Portland wants to continue to have this identity as a very rich cultural creative DIY landscape, our leaders need to step up and try to find a way to fund the arts better here,” she said. “Collectively, we need to find a way to do that.”

Portland Center Stage

Like many other arts organizations in the city, Portland Center Stage (PCS) had an NEA grant canceled last spring. That did not come as a shock. The real shock came when, several months ago, the theater received word that the NEA had approved a separate grant application of theirs—$35,000 to support a new play festival celebrating, as luck would have it, LGBTQ+ playwrights.

But Edwina Kane, director of development, said the theater isn’t counting on any future NEA grants—especially given the departure of the NEA program officer they previously worked closely with.

PCS has a larger operating budget than many other local arts organizations and has received significant support from the city and state. Still, they’ve had to make cuts to staff hours and the size of a production even as they’ve raised nearly $7 million as part of an emergency fundraising campaign.

“We’ve cut back as far as we can until we hit the point of diminishing returns,” Kane said.

Portland Institute for Contemporary Art

Each September, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) hosts its Time-Based Art Festival—often with NEA support. The agency had initially been approved for a $30,000 grant for last year’s showcase, but it was, like many others, canceled.

“The award was for our flagship program, and with our modest organizational budget, the effect was felt instantly,” said Reuben Roqueñi, PICA’s executive director.

The City of Portland awarded PICA a grant of $10,000 following the NEA cancellations, but the organization nevertheless had to scale the festival back and ultimately did not invite a larger company that was set to participate. PICA’s application to the NEA for this year’s Time-Based Art Festival was rejected.

Oregon Humanities

As much as cuts in NEA funding have hurt local arts organizations, the situation facing Oregon Humanities last spring was even more dire: Oregon Humanities received 40 percent of its annual operating budget from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), making the abrupt elimination of that funding a crisis.

“Unlike NEA, where they had some kind of process, they just ended everything,” Ben Waterhouse, the communications director and editor of Oregon Humanities magazine, said. “That meant we laid off four staff, we had everyone working reduced hours for a while, [and] we had to scramble to find other funding sources.”

Oregon Humanities received help from organizations like the Mellon Foundation and is hopeful a lawsuit will help restore its NEH funding in the near future, but nevertheless had to cancel its annual public program grants and remains in operation with a reduced staff.

David Hockney's Restless Eye Is Revealed

Lindsay Costello — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:50:00 -0700

The Portland Art Museum's new exhibition shows the artist’s evolving style across 60 years and 200 artworks.

by Lindsay Costello

“David sees the world backward,” says Doug Roberts, a Los Angeles art dealer and longtime friend of David Hockney. Roberts was appearing on a panel about the artist, as part of Portland Art Museum’s (PAM) new exhibition tracing 60 years of Hockney’s work. He meant it as praise.

Hockney, whose sunny California scenes somehow simmer with loneliness, has built a career on challenging how we see. He embraces new artistic technologies, elevates everyday objects, and believes that perspective isn’t fixed in a work of art—actually, it begins with you, the viewer.

Jessie Rose Vala Channels Ecological Grief Into The Pollinators

Melissa Locker — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:48:00 -0700

“They are kind of moth-like and plant-like. But they also have neon coming out of their eyes.”

by Melissa Locker

When you walk into Jessie Rose Vala’s show at Chefas Projects, you’ll quickly realize: These aren’t your average ceramics. Instead of raku fired pots or pastel hand-thrown vases, Vala’s work transforms clay into mission statements about the state of the world.

Combining sculptural ceramics with neon and metallics, Vala’s pieces feel chimeric, bringing in elements of earth, animal, and the human form to deliver a discourse on humanity’s disruption of the natural world with a side of myth-making. In short, it’s really fucking cool.

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“The show is called The Pollinators,” she explains from her studio in the woods outside Eugene. Much of the work draws from her interest in nature, and the pieces in the show reflect on the important work of the planet’s endangered pollinators—but there’s also a read of them as hybrid creatures with some aspects of the female face and form. “They’re kind of strange and a little monolithic,” Vala says. “They are kind of moth-like and plant-like and relate to endangered species. But they also have neon coming out of their eyes.”

Vala grew up with an appreciation for the lush greenery and towering trees of the Pacific Northwest. Her father was a landscape architect with an activist bent, taking her to protests seeking to protect old-growth forests. It’s clear this left an impact, as Vala’s work meditates on the natural world and what humans have done to it.

“I feel like there’s always a throughline in my work of being really concerned over our current system of capitalism, our extractive economy, and the degradation that happens to our planet and our bodies,” she explains. That throughline can lead from endangered orchids and insects to the treatment of women. “I’ve always been naturally more figurative in the work I make, and that’s always been female characters or female-like hybridity,” she says. “While I’m not academic, and I don’t know everything about eco-feminism, I think there are just core things about how we treat women and children that are shitty. How we treat other animals in our environment is shitty, and we are all caught up in this really poor way of being and thinking.”

That sense of loss and injustice courses through Vala’s work. “There’s so much grief in the world,” she says, “particularly with the loss of our ecologies. There is so much grief, and in our culture, I feel like there’s not that much space for it. With grief, the only way to get to the other side is to walk into it and fully be there. That’s when there can be a deepening and enriching growth.” So with The Pollinators, Vala has channeled that grief into and through her hands, creating gloriously hybrid shapes of plants, femme forms, and animal bodies that feel natural while looking wholly unnatural.

The result isn’t sorrowful, but somehow triumphant—and also kind of metal. “They are metal,” Vala says, laughing, “but the glazes also just have a lot of metallics in them.”

The Pollinators shows at Chefas Projects, 134 SE Taylor, Suite 203, through Sat April 4, more info.

Reading the Room at Cooley Gallery’s IF

Lindsay Costello — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:46:00 -0700

The new exhibition unites three artists, including a former nun.

by Lindsay Costello

What does it mean to write in space? At Reed College’s Cooley Gallery, new director and curator Derek Franklin thinks about it, bringing together three eloquent artists who take language into form. IF pairs serigraphs by Sister Corita Kent, a Roman Catholic nun who eventually left the order to devote herself fully to anti-war, pro-love Pop art, with sculptures by key Northwest School figure and longtime Portlander Hilda Morris. Kristan Kennedy, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s artistic director and curator of visual art, rounds out the show as its sole living artist.

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Upon entry, Kent’s “IF” (1965) lures the eye upward. The serigraph—a silkscreen print in fine art parlance—hangs high on the wall with a subtle vulnerability. Two orange letters hover toward the composition’s top edge, as if pushing to transcend the picture plane. A feeling of possibility emerges through the conjunction and its visual form.

Corita Kent, "IF" (1965). COURTESY OF COOLEY GALLERY

Morris’ sculptures feel a little vulnerable, too. She worked in cement and metals, and pieces like “Centaur’s Laugh” resemble scar tissue stretched over bony armatures. Her forms read as letter-like—“Morris does not write so much as extend the act of writing into air,” the exhibition statement suggests. Yet “Centaur’s Laugh” also registers as a delicate, continual line of movement, gestures mapped and frozen in space.

Bleached, knotted, inked, and slashed, Kennedy’s 2017 textile works drape from dark nails, overlapping to cover an entire wall. The linen hangings are visual palimpsests, telling layered stories of artistic process. They also provide the show’s conceptual scaffolding, holding Kent’s direct prayers and Morris’ metal gestures in a soft, colorful balance.

Another Kennedy work, “Floor Thing” (2016), stretches across the gallery floor, dyed, sprayed, and mysteriously stained. The piece feels like the aftermath of a studio session; Kennedy’s textiles are sites of action and resolved works all at once. An unattributed leather pouch and a handful of rocks rest atop “Floor Thing” like a protective amulet.

Kristan Kennedy, "N.P.C.E." (2017), and Hilda Morris, "Presence of the Beginning" (1963- 1964). COURTESY OF COOLEY GALLERY

Curiously, wide sections of gallery walls are left empty, while several of Kent’s more text-heavy pieces are installed behind a desk in the lobby. The works pull from devotional and pop culture worlds, borrowing lines from 17th-century metaphysical poet Richard Crashaw, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

“The text in that one is really great,” the gallery attendant said as I ducked behind the desk to look at Kent’s “help or something” (1967) more closely. They were right. The piece transcribes poet Gerald Huckaby’s “The Rumored Lovechild,” but its most emphatic proclamations—“Help!... OR SOMETHING” in wavering red, “I LOVE” in bold serif down one side—embody the show’s central ethos. If art is an act of address, or maybe even prayer, then the artist’s work is to reach past themselves—to stretch, gather, and strain toward connection.

IF is on view at Reed College’s Cooley Gallery, 3203 SE Woodstock, Thurs-Sun 12-5 pm through May 17, FREE, reed.edu/cooley.

The Makers of Untitled Goose Game Hit a Different, Still Mischievous Note With Big Walk

Suzette Smith — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:44:00 -0700

House House’s new friend hang video game is beautiful, even if it made me dizzy.

by Suzette Smith

Big Walk made me motion sick, but I want to play it again. The new video game invites players into an open world setting where they can talk to their friends, solve puzzles, explore, or—dare we say—kiki?

We got a chance to demo the game at the Panic office in downtown Portland, and soon so can you. Starting March 9, Panic is inviting fans to come play it in their studios.

Find Your Passion for Graphic Design at Volumes

Taylor Griggs — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:42:00 -0700

Volumes isn’t a library where you have to be quiet. by Taylor Griggs

Michael Ellsworth wants to make the often-opaque world of graphic design accessible and collaborative. The co-founder and creative director of Seattle-born studio Civilization, Ellsworth has spent his career working to bring design to the masses. His next project, the Volumes Design Library, is a culmination of that work—and it opens in downtown Portland this spring.

Ellsworth’s vision for the Volumes Design Library is simple: The library will host a large collection of design-focused books, magazines, and ephemera, running the gamut from graphic design to architecture to fashion. While visitors won’t be able to check out materials—many are rare—guests will be encouraged to take photos or use the library’s scanners.

And Volumes isn’t a library where you have to be quiet. Guests will be encouraged to yap.

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“It’s going to be a little bit of a trial by fire to see how that all works. But I’m up for an experiment,” Ellsworth told the Mercury.

Ellsworth moved to Portland in the aftermath of the pandemic, taking part in the remote work revolution. Prior to 2020’s shut down, Civilization hosted an annual lecture series, bringing designers from around the world to speak at the Seattle Public Library. Ellsworth got involved with the Kemeny Lecture Series hosted by the Portland State University (PSU) graphic design program as a way to get out in the world and socialize with other creative, design-minded people. He sees the library as a continuation of that work. An avid collector of design books and magazines, Ellsworth said he has long dreamt of opening a dedicated design library. When he discovered an airy, window-lined space on the second floor of downtown Portland’s historic J.K. Gill Building was available, the pieces started to fall into place.

Volumes will be located up a flight of stairs from Design Portland’s digs on the building’s main floor. While Design Portland was previously the umbrella organization in charge of the now-defunct Design Week Portland, the co-directors behind the urban design series City of Possibility recently assumed stewardship of it.

Author, educator, and art director Briar Levit may be the most recognizable name on the team working to crack Volumes open for the public. A longstanding professor of graphic design at PSU and co-director of the People’s Graphic Design Archive, among her countless other projects, Levit says the People’s Archive will maintain dedicated space in Volumes, which sounds groundbreaking for the “crowd-sourced virtual archive of inclusive graphic design history.”

Levit said she thinks there’s value in browsing through materials in the physical world, which graphic designers don’t always get the opportunity to do.

“A lot of folks don’t get to libraries as much anymore,” Levit told the Mercury. “It takes a focused, special space like this for people to remember that there’s a kismet that happens when you’re looking through the stacks that you just don’t get online.”

Another Portland graphic designer working with Ellsworth, Quinn Richards, stressed the importance of escaping the online algorithm. “We increasingly live in a world that’s synthesized and algorithmic,” she said. “The hope with the library is that you can get exposed to inspiration that you maybe had no idea even existed.”

The founders’ vision for Volumes is stridently inclusive and unpretentious. In Ellsworth’s view, Portland’s design community is open and collaborative—he called it an “all ships rise” culture—so it wouldn’t make sense to make the library stuffy and self-important.

“I really want this to be a place of accessibility for this stuff. A lot of these books are expensive, and people don’t want to touch them,” Ellsworth said. “I want people to touch them.”

Levit said graphic design isn’t a subject that stays in its lane, opening the door for anyone to get involved or become interested in it.

“Graphic design history is like the receipts of history. Everything, every invoice or poster is telling the story of the past. It could relate to war, protest, the social mores of the time,” Levit said. “You can always find the intersection of your interests in graphic design. There’s an entrance for everyone, because it touches everyone.”

Those working on the project aren’t concerned about attracting visitors of a certain design pedigree.They want to build a community space that communicates their love of design.

“I’m reaching out to the community to help, because I really want [Volumes] to be supported,” Ellsworth said. “I want people to want to be here and be a part of it.”

Volumes Design Library is expected to open in late spring 2026 at 426 SW Harvey Milk. Find out more at volumeslibrary.org.

Kevin Sampsell's New Novel Looks at the World Through a Baby in the Night

Jeremiah Hayden — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:40:00 -0700

When we find stuff to hate it means we’re becoming more like grown-ups. by Jeremiah Hayden

Tony Ventura, the main character of Kevin Sampsell’s surreal novel Baby in the Night, doesn’t have the words or the context to understand his surroundings; he’s only two years old after all.

“It was like my brain really wanted to but my mouth didn’t know how yet or maybe just didn’t try hard enough,” Tony says of learning how to talk.

But as the first-person narrator, Tony is well-suited to describe his world in fresh ways. He can’t lean on stereotypes; he can only learn about the world as he perceives it, tabula rasa. This makes for a compelling story about a boy searching for his departed father, who he believes is the Moon. Tony shows childlike compassion for people living in poverty, including his own mother, as cynicism hasn’t yet damaged his world.

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Baby in the Night is Sampsell’s second novel, a surprisingly slight number, considering the author and micropress publisher’s prolific and varied output. While he’s likely best known for his 2010 memoir A Common Pornography and the 2013 This Is Between Us, Sampsell is also a fixture at Powell’s City of Books, where he introduces most author readings.

Sampsell’s new novel draws themes from the 1955 children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon, in which a young boy draws the night world he wants to interact with. Tony too escapes into the night sometimes, where he encounters a “slumber party” in an alley and Dylan—a homeless, teenaged cousin with green, then orange, dyed hair who shows Tony around, takes him home, or out for doughnuts on occasion.

Dylan shares his story with Tony over a day-old doughnut. A string of bad luck, beginning in a broken childhood, keeps Dylan in fight or flight mode as he tries to get by. He describes his circumstances as a result of some choices, sure, but also an absurd sequence of events—involving bowling alley drug dealers and a man with a chimpanzee who briefly takes him in, only for Dylan to lose that housing too.

Tony listens without judgement. He’s the same with La-La, a woman who orders him a quesadilla while in search of his mother, and with others who pass by during his late night excursions. Through his innocence, readers have a chance to approach the relationships, loves, and undeniable community with curiosity, something too often destroyed by the limitations of words or learned heuristics.

Baby in the Night isn’t exactly a coming-of-age story—the character only ages from two to four. But in his search to understand how his father came to be the Moon, Tony learns a lot, like “when we find stuff to hate it means we’re becoming more like grown-ups.” Or, how everyone deserves to clear the obstacles placed in front of them.

“I learned something about myself that day, but I wasn’t sure exactly what,” Tony says after a doctor removes a cast from his broken arm. “Maybe that I belonged in one piece, or that I could be healed from anything.”

Maybe so, Tony. Maybe so.

Kevin Sampsell appears in conversation with Kimberly King Parsons at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside, Wed March 18, 7 pm, FREE, more info, all ages.

Spring 2026 Movies To Put on Your Calendar

Dom Sinacola — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:38:00 -0700

ceaseless banter machine Ryan Gosling must remember his past to save humanity’s future by Dom Sinacola March

Project Hail Mary: Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller serve up fresh sci-fi sap for the first day of Spring. Trapped on a spaceship headed for a distant star, no idea how he got there, a “science teacher” somehow named “Ryland Grace,” played by ceaseless banter machine Ryan Gosling, must remember his past to save humanity’s future.

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April

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: There’s a lot that’s grotesque about the amount of money this sequel will make, but personally, I’m most appalled by the continued celebration of Chris Pratt’s stolen Italian valor.

The Christophers: We’re blessed to live in a time when Steven Soderbergh takes four to five weeks per year to generate approximately two motion pictures. In the second quarter of 2026, expect Soderbergh’s next offering, The Christophers, written by the creator of Bill & Ted and starring Ian McKellan and Micaela Coel, two actors who, like their director, are as fascinating as they are reliable.

Faces of Death: In a bit of unintentional viral marketing, the original uncensored trailer for Daniel Goldhaber’s remake of the infamous 1978 atrocity exhibition was pulled from YouTube for violating terms of service. Undoubtedly, tales of public puking and preview screening walk-outs will follow. The trailer can't be embedded because it's too hardcore🙄, so click here if you want to watch it.

Blue Heron: I loved Sophy Romvari’s reflective autofiction debut so much that it ranked #2 on my favorite films of 2025, despite its nebulous US release date. Perhaps the first nice thing to happen in 2026, it’s coming to local theaters in April! No trailer for this just yet, but we'll add it when Janus lets that birdie fly!

Normal: Ben Wheatley, great filmmaker who hasn’t touched greatness in 10 years, stays employed with Normal, the latest bad dad splatter-actioner from writer-actor business duo Derek Kolstad and Bob Odenkirk, who last paired for the Nobody movies. This is just what Bob Odenkirk does now, I guess.

Michael: Instead of doing something productive—like directing another Equalizer movie—Antoine Fuqua helms this Michael Jackson hagiography. While it’s possible Michael won’t gloss over the pop icon’s controversies, we all know in our hearts what this movie will be. Prepare for rote biopic refuse!

May

The Sheep Detectives: Talking sheep raised on Agatha Christie novels investigate the murder of their shepherd (Hugh Jackman). Doubtful if the sheep are licensed law enforcement, but still: SCAB (sheep cops are bastards).

I Love Boosters: Writer-director Boots Riley follows up Sorry to Bother You with a cadre of shoplifters who take on a fashion mogul (Demi Moore). Riley has good politics, so the studio wanted me to let you know it’s actually praxis to see this in a chain theater.

The Mandalorian and Grogu: As Werner Herzog once intoned about the titular Grogu, “I would like to see the baby.” Will audiences “like to see the baby” come May?! To quote Herzog again: “What we do as filmmakers is immaterial. It’s only a projection of light. And doing that all your life makes you just a clown.”

Stop! That! Train! Starring Ginger Minj and Jujubee as stewardesses on Stank Rail, a high-speed train heading for disaster, Stop! That! Train! features an ensemble from the Drag Race universe, including Ru herself as the perfectly named President Gagwell. Good luck, director Adam Shankman, and DON’T fuck this up. We're still waiting on the trailer for this too—stay tuned!

Portland Center Stage and Portland Playhouse Team up To Serve Fat Ham

Joe Streckert — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:36:00 -0700

The Pulitzer Prize-winning play is a Black and queer spin on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

by Joe Streckert

Hamlet can be a lot of things: A sad boy who can’t make up his mind. A philosopher plumbing the mysteries of the human condition. A guy with some really weird feelings about his mom. Simba from The Lion King. In Fat Ham, playwright James Ijames reimagined the prince of Denmark as Juicy, a queer Black southern kid who’s studying to work in HR. Instead of a gloomy Danish castle, the action takes place at a backyard cookout, celebrating the marriage of Juicy’s mother and uncle. Laertes has become Larry, Ophelia is Opal, and Horatio is Juicy’s friend Tio.

Fat Ham debuted in Philadelphia in 2021, originating as a digital production during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It then moved on to an Off-Broadway production, an extended Broadway run that netted five Tony nominations, and productions by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, among others. In 2022, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

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This spring, Fat Ham makes its Portland debut as a co-production between Portland Center Stage (PCS) and Portland Playhouse. Far from the first collaboration for either company, PCS has previously partnered with local production company Boom Arts and Playhouse has co-produced shows with St. Paul’s Penumbra Theater and Passinart, a historically Black theater company in Portland. But this collaboration is different. “For us this feels like we’re leveling up,” says Charles Grant, Playhouse producing director and director of Fat Ham. “In many of our co-pro situations we are the larger theater.”

This production formalizes relationships that already existed between the two theater companies. “There’s a longtime and rich dialogue between artists and artistic staff at both theaters,” says Marissa Wolf, PCS artistic director. “There’s a lot of shared programming interests and values alignment. We’re always seeing each other’s work.” For instance, prior to his time at Playhouse, Grant acted in and was assistant director for multiple PCS productions.

PCS and Playhouse collaborated on the casting and design of Fat Ham. Both theaters are pouring money into the production, and both will benefit from ticket sales. For some new talent, this project is a debut at both theaters at the same time. According to Grant and Wolf, choosing Fat Ham for their collaboration was a mutual decision that meshed well with the strengths of both theaters.

“We’ve found great success at PCS in adaptations,” says Wolf. “That’s been a really exciting way to introduce audiences to new voices, new lenses and perspectives on classic, well-known pieces.”

For Grant, selecting Fat Ham is also consistent with Playhouse’s mission to acknowledge Black voices. “For us as Portland Playhouse, being in the King neighborhood, being in the former Mount Sinai Baptist Church,” says Grant, “every time we’re season planning we always want to be intentional about representing the very neighborhood we exist in. I like to say that it’s a historically and presently Black neighborhood. It’s one of the places where you can walk around in Portland and see people like me.”

Grant’s history with Shakespeare is one of self-discovery. “When I was in high school, I looked at Shakespeare and I was like ‘this isn’t a place for me.’ I was reading it, and it wasn’t connecting,” says Grant. “It wasn’t until I started to embody it and letting the text live inside of me that I thought ‘oh, not only is there something here for me, there’s something I can bring.’”

Fat Ham is written in contemporary language, but Juicy uses Shakespeare’s words and his knowledge of Hamlet to meditate on his situation. “In the play, we get both modern text and Shakespearian soliloquy spread throughout the text,” says Grant. “There are moments where Juicy steps outside of his world and it’s Shakespeare’s text that lets him discover something new about himself and the world around him.” Grant characterizes soliloquies as the character’s way to “get the audience on his side,” about decisions he has to make and actions he must take.

For Grant, Hamlet and Juicy torment themselves because they constantly put others first. “I think of Hamlet as a tortured people-pleaser,” says Grant. “Juicy can see the world around him in a different way. He wants to connect. He wants everyone to live their authentic journey. However… that comes at a cost to self.”

In this co-production, Juicy is portrayed by Isaiah Reynolds, whose previous PCS credits include Sweeney Todd and Choir Boy. “He embodies that softness and that ease and wanting the best for everyone and wanting to see people as they are,” says Grant.

Wolf and Grant are quick to point out that Fat Ham isn’t just a one-to-one retelling of Hamlet. It’s an adaptation, but not quite the same story. “Fat Ham draws from Hamlet, but ultimately—in the most full and profound way—refuses a tragic ending,” says Wolf. “What happens if we stand back up from death and choose love, celebration, and connection? And particularly choose Black and queer joy?”

Grant is trying not to let Fat Ham’s high-profile runs in New York and Stratford-Upon-Avon get to him. “I’m definitely the artist that doesn’t like to take in too much of other productions beforehand,” he says. “As a director, I like to be able to listen to my own artistic voice and sensibilities and trust those instincts… I try to remind myself, and this group of artists, that it’s not going to do us any service if we try to copy and paste what’s been done.”

Fat Ham plays on the main stage at the Armory, 128 NW 11th, April 19-May 17, $25-98, tickets and showtimes at pcs.org/fat-ham.

A Mirror Shines Like a Kaleidoscope

John Rudoff — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:34:00 -0700

The questions Sam Holcroft poses about making art under authoritarianism are certainly timely.

by John Rudoff

These are deeply worrisome times. Stability, democracy, countries, our neighbors—all seem less permanent than they once were. Sam Holcroft’s complex and frightening 2023 play A Mirror reflects this uncertainty. The play isn’t timely, nor is it meant to be. It’s more like a kaleidoscope—as is our current, fractured reality. We can look at this play and ask ourselves: Where do we stand? As artists, allies, soldiers, or simply as moral agents.

That’s a big lift, but this is a big play.

Queer Joy in the House of Danger

Courtney Vaughn — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:32:00 -0700

Pro wrestling is already heavily queer-coded. by Courtney Vaughn

On the top floor of the Swan Dive in Southeast Portland, wrestlers are grappling, slapping, and slamming each other around in a dimly lit room. From a modest stage, comedians crack commentary. The crowd chants together and waves homemade signs. The only thing missing is the overt hetero-performative energy that typically punctuates a wrestling match.

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It’s the latest installment of the House of Danger Queer Wrestling Variety Show, the brainchild project of Clancy Kramer, who wrestles as Clemente Danger.

Kramer was already training locally to learn foundational grappling skills before discovering T-boy Wrestling–a LA-based indie production geared toward trans wrestlers.

“The original thing was I just wanted to find some people to practice with who were sort of at the same level as me, so we could all build up together,” Kramer explains.

T-boy Wrestling has since dissolved its operations, but appetite for the concept lingered. Excitement crystalized into inspiration and before long, Kramer was curating Portland’s very own queer-centered, indie wrestling production.

Kramer was also getting interested in the local stand-up comedy scene. It didn’t take long before she melded the two. Other live performance elements, like “draglesque,” fit nicely under the variety show label.

In early February, House of Danger put on its third show, featuring four matches. Local comics Ben Harkins and Riley McCarthy served as emcees, with an intermission performance from local drag/burlesque performer Ripper. Faith Daniels, from Portland’s heavy pop punk group, Nervous State provided vocal renditions of beloved emo songs between matches.

Kramer took on Kylie Karma in the second half. Karma whizzed around in a hot pink dress and sneakers, long brunette curls whipping around with every kick.

Mid-match, Karma acquired aluminum baking sheets, swatting Kramer in the face with the disposable kitchen goods. Kramer recovered, responding with a powerbomb–a quintessential wrestling move where an athlete hoists an opponent above their head before slamming them down on the mat.

The move looks violent and downright dangerous, particularly for amateur wrestlers working outside the confines of a real ring. But for all the fresh energy and rough-around-the edges production value, House of Danger athletes have clearly been training.

“Our matches are only about seven minutes each, but it’s seven minutes of using your whole body,” Kramer says. “You’re absolutely exhausted, soaking-wet sweaty when you come off the mat.”

The burgeoning group of about eight athletes (10 if you count new recruits) trains at a dojo in North Portland once a week. Outside of practice, they rely on the magic of old wrestling videos on YouTube for guidance on how to execute moves.

For Princesa Payaso (“clown princess”), classic lucha libre matches are a primary source of inspiration. Luchador wrestlers are known for perfecting the art of agility and speed, showcasing acrobatic dives off the top rope.

“For me, what I get out of it is an incredible sense of queer liberation and community,” Payaso explains.

In many ways, pro wrestling is already heavily queer-coded—high-drama story lines and over-the-top theatrics paired with bright, eccentric costumes (for the uninitiated, search “Nature Boy Ric Flair” circa 1987), and the undeniable physicality of the scripted sport that sees people pressed against each other in compromising positions.

But subtext aside, mainstream pro wrestling has yet to fully shed its hypermasculine and gender-normative tropes.

“I definitely feel like a huge part of the reason I wanted to gear it toward the queer community is pro wrestling as a whole is really geared toward a young boys crowd,” Kramer tells the Mercury. “It’s been marketed to straight men for a very long time.”

That’s why Kramer and Payaso say House of Danger transcends Portland’s quirky entertainment space into territory that’s affirmative.

For Payaso, the variety show “just brings a little bit of joy into the chaos of the world.”

House of Danger Queer Wrestling Variety Show takes place at Swan Dive, 727 SE Grand, Thurs March 19, 8 pm, $15, more info @littlebabydanger on Instagram, 21+

Meet the 2026 Mercury Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy!

Wm. Steven Humphrey — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:30:00 -0700

Ten of Portland’s shiniest stand-up talents, with special guest Matt Braunger—coming March 27!

by Wm. Steven Humphrey

It’s no secret that Portland is a veritable hotbed of comedic talent. Thanks to local audiences who support comedy in all forms, the city’s stand-up scene has become one of the best in the nation. So not only are we blessed with a solid base of long-standing talent, comedy newcomers also have plenty of opportunities to build their skills in a welcoming, encouraging community.

And that’s why, since 2016, the Portland Mercury has been throwing the biggest, most laugh-filled comedy show of the year: The Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy! We want to show YOU the wide array of talented folks that make up Portland’s amazing comedy scene—from the cream of the crop, to the new-on-the-scene talent that we predict are going to make a big splash in years to come. And the 2026 crew of Geniuses (coming at you on Friday, March 27 at Revolution Hall) is one of our best lineups ever, featuring stand-up, drag artistry, wild stuff that defies description, and our very special guest headliner, the fabulous MATT BRAUNGER!

But trust me when I say, you better snap up those tickets quick at merctickets.com, because with a lineup this hot, this show WILL sell out!

Now let’s meet your 2026 Mercury Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy….

YOUR HOSTS, ADAM PASI AND NARIKO OTT!

We’re doubling up the fun in this year’s edition of Geniuses, with not one but TWO hilarious hosts. Former top winners of the annual “Portland’s Funniest Person” contest as well as prior Geniuses inductees, Pasi and Ott have a very long list of accomplishments, including being the current hosts of the fall-down funny monthly show Topic Thunder, in which comedians present brand-new material based on the latest news of the day. (If you like your news skewered and spit-roasted, this is the show for you!) Pasi and Ott will be giving you a taste of Topic Thunder at this year’s Geniuses, as well as showcasing their wild, unpredictable, and hilarious stand-up sets.

SUPER SPECIAL GUEST HEADLINER, MATT BRAUNGER!

We are as pleased as punch to welcome former Portlander and nationally beloved comedian Matt Braunger to this year’s Geniuses show. Born and raised here, Braunger cut his teeth on Portland stages before becoming a headliner (and soon after, a national treasure) in 2007. Since then he’s been named as one of Variety’s Top 10 Comics to Watch, and was a cast member of Fox’s MADtv while also making appearances on such popular shows as Agent Carter, Superstore, Bojack Horseman, Happy Endings, Conan, the Late Show with David Letterman—all while simultaneously touring and recording numerous comedy specials and albums. On stage, Braunger is an animated, master storyteller who also happens to be an expert at spotting those little, true absurdities of life that will make you cry with laughter, “Goddammit, Matt! You’re right again!”

KATE MURPHY!

No surprises here: We love Kate Murphy! You may remember her as the host of the Mercury's I, Anonymous Show, the HUMP! Film Festival, as well as co-hosting our local (and very evil) live game show, Two Evils. Along with being a recurring finalist in Portland's Funniest Person competition, she's been featured in far too many fests to include here, but… okay fine, here are just a few: the Hell Yes Fest, The NW Women’s Comedy Festival, as well as the Pacific Crest Comedy Fest. Murphy is adored by the comedy community and Portland audiences for her razor sharp, adorable, and hilariously bizarre observations on modern life. It bears repeating: We love Kate Murphy! (And you will too!)

GEOFF TATE!

Getting his start in the Cincinnati comedy scene, Geoff Tate has been making a big name for himself both in Portland and nationally. Touring with Mike Birbiglia and Tom Segura, Tate is also well known on the festival circuit, performing at Bonnaroo, SF Sketchfest, SXSW, while also recording… [blinks, checks notes] more than a dozen comedy albums? And we’re just getting started, because Tate has also guested on some of the biggest podcasts, including WTF with Marc Maron, The Todd Glass Show, Doug Loves Movies, and lots more. As for his stand-up comedy, he’s been called “wildly funny, with a cunning sense of dry wit,” while having a “knack for mining his own personal history for big laughs,” and is “a Star Wars-loving, sometimes drug-taking, hilarious guy.” And who are we to disagree?

VIRGINIA JONES!

A 20-year stand-up veteran, the experience really shows with Virginia Jones. Her comedy is whip-smart, dry as a bone, and she delivers devastating punchlines with an unforgettable glare. Placing second in the most recent Portland’s Funniest Person competition, she’s also worked with such comic luminaries as Maria Bamford, Jackie Kashian, Laurie Kilmartin, Kevin McDonald, and Eddie Pepitone—all of whom know a thing or two about the necessity of a great opener. Jones is a regular on the festival scene, having been invited to Bumbershoot, the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, Boston’s Women in Comedy fest, and has appeared at the SF Sketchfest a whopping four times. Plus, she’s not only appeared on Portlandia, and CNN’s History of Comedy, but she also somehow wound up on an “Australian tap dance commercial.” Color us SOLD.

JULIAN GRAY!

If you’re a lover of fun, entertaining stories that take a lot of hilarious twists and turns, you’ll flip ass over teakettle for Julian Gray, a comedian, writer, and self-proclaimed “pop-a-shot connoisseur” who's making his Geniuses debut this year. A regular at Helium Comedy Club, Gray has opened for a multitude of nationally touring comedians, and has been wowing audiences on the festival circuit, including the Limestone Comedy Festival, LA’s Bergamot Fest, and the Houston Riot Comedy Festival. But telling hilarious stories is where Gray really shines, whether it’s about eating 322 times at Olive Garden, the vagaries of sleep paralysis, or the inherent danger of pairing an original Four Loko with a Crunchwrap Supreme. (Maybe we’ll get him to demonstrate his pop-a-shot prowess.)

JEWELS FIELD!

A hot up-and-comer on the scene, Jewels Field was raised on a steady comedy diet of Mitch Hedberg and Adam Sandler (she’s seen Big Daddy approximately 1,000 times). As a result, Fields has an absolutely delightful (and confidently awkward) way of starting with an average observation and then immediately transporting it into an absurdist multiverse. For example, here’s the biography Field submitted for this article: “Jewels spent her early life in a school for exceptionally gifted children, starting at age 5. When her mother met with the school’s director to discuss her admission, Jewels found pepper spray in her mom’s purse and promptly maced herself.” Sounds exceptional to us!

MX. DAHLIA BELLE!

Hilarious and as she puts it, “the best sort of mess,” we’re thrilled to welcome comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle to the Geniuses stage. Best known for her appearance on the popular Netflix special Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda, Belle is known for being a comedic Swiss Army knife—simultaneously demonstrating sharpness, softness, vulnerability, hope, and (of course) a neverending stream of wicked wit. Her writing has been featured in Cosmopolitan, The Guardian, The Stranger, and Portland Mercury, and you may have witnessed her comedy prowess at the NW Black Comedy Festival, Upper Left Comedy Festival, SF Sketchfest, and the Here To Pee Tour. But perhaps one of her greatest honors was being included in Out magazine’s list of “11 Trans Comedians Funnier Than Dave Chappelle”—and when you see her in action, you’ll believe it!

And Drag Artistry from PEACHY SPRINGS!

Fans of local bingo need no introduction to Peachy Springs, who has hands-down earned the title of Portland’s foul-mouthed “Queen of Bingo,” as well as being honored as the second place winner of Portland’s “Best Drag Queen.” Boasting a razor-sharp wit and a braying laugh, Springs will be bringing lots of surprises to the Geniuses stage—and while we don’t want to give anything away, you can count on a hilarious, filthy, and absolutely glamorous good time!

What a lineup, amirite? So don’t be the fool that misses the 2026 edition of the UNDISPUTABLE GENIUSES OF COMEDY—Friday, March 27, 8 pm, at Revolution Hall! But hurry, hurry… since this show will almost certainly sell out, get those tickets lickity-split at merctickets.com. It’s guaranteed to be an undisputable evening of top-notch hilarity!

Philip Glass Spreads His Wings on the First Complete Recording of 1000 Airplanes on the Roof

Nolan Parker — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:28:00 -0700

Portland’s Third Angle played the piece under an airplane in McMinnville, the subsequent recording is pure science-fiction.

by Nolan Parker

The power of place and context are not lost on Third Angle New Music. Founded in 1985, the Portland nonprofit curates site-specific experiences featuring music by young composers and venerated 20th century legends, often commissioning brand new pieces for their performances. For example, in January, Third Angle tucked musicians into the nooks and crannies of Central Eastside experimental playground Hopscotch, using the venue as a concert hall for four different versions of Steve Reich’s Counterpoints.

On March 6, Philip Glass’ Orange Mountain Music record label released a recording of 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, a 1988 “science fiction music drama” composed by Glass, with libretto written by David Henry Hwang. Recorded by Third Angle between October 2023 and March 2024, this is the first ever complete recording of the one act piece.

While the recording doesn’t directly capture the two live performances Third Angle premiered in 2023, those were some special shows. The approximately 80-minute work was staged under the Hughes H-4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” airplane in the hangar of McMinnville, Oregon’s Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.

Third Angle enlisted acclaimed actress-vocalist Ithica Tell to read Hwang’s libretto, which follows a character called M—a distinct nod to Kafka’s single-letter antiheroes—around New York City as they descend into a shame spiral of depersonalization, becoming suspicious of themself and those around them. The role has been played by different genders, but Third Angle framed M as a queer Black woman. And Tell read with nuance and conviction, moving throughout the multi-leveled staging as if actually pounding New York pavement. Coupled with the ethereal otherworldly vocals of Arwen Myers’ soprano, the effect was devastating.

See everything in the 2026 Spring Arts Guide collection here. Find a print paper here! If you haven't signed up for a subscription or regular contribution, we can do that for you too.

Third Angle artistic director Sarah Tiedemann describes the music of 1000 Airplanes as “a gateway into the deeper subject matter of the piece,” drawing correlations between M’s experiences to disorienting oppressions we continue to endure today, from masked agents disappearing Black and brown community members to our trans siblings losing the rights to their own bodies.

Chunks of M’s life and memory are missing, and they grasp not only for the meaning of their own life but that of human existence itself. Interpretations of M’s experience range from alien abductions to mental health crises or assaults facilitated by roofies.

Musicians from the 2023 performances, left to right: Nikolas Caoile, Yoko Greeney, John Nastos, Sarah Tiedemann, Sean Fredenburg, Arwen Myers, Maria Garcia. Sara Wright

“No, I’m not a psychopath. But yes, I am disturbed,” M exasperates themself, thinking in circles. Is M crazy if they’re the only one able to see through the long centuries of violent capitalism, no one else around them seems to care about or even notice? Or is M crazy because of their refusal to take part in a system of violence that most (in the US) seem content to live within?

Performing 1000 Airplanes in the museum’s hangar overtly framed the sci-fi melodrama with its vastness, nodding to the piece’s title. But the most dramatic place-based underscoring of the performances were its sunsets.Tiedemann says she researched the sunset times for both evenings of the performances, so that “as M is descending into the darker corners of her mind, the sun was setting in the background, giving [Third Angle] the opportunity to illuminate the plane.”

A crowd at one of the 2023 performances. Sara Wright

The in-studio recordings that followed include not only Tell’s reading, but also a second disc with an instrumental version of 1000 Airplanes. The hope is, Tiedemann explains, that the listener will be given two albums: One with Tell’s reading of Hwang’s libretto for a focused, true-to-composition listening experience and the other to be enjoyed as a more casual, libretto-less sonic landscape.

When asked what next for Third Angle’s production of 1000 Airplanes, Tiedemann responded: “Each step of [1000 Airplanes] has been so all-encompassing that all of us at Third Angle have been holding on for dear life.” Now that the album is out in the world, Tiedemann and crew can start thinking about how to get the performance back in front of people live, alluding to another potential set of Portland performances and a possible European run. “The challenge logistically is that I want it to be an immersive experience every time Third Angle performs it,” she said, “requiring so much more infrastructure to set up in each location. We’re always seeking supporters who would like to help us put these larger projects together.”

Orange Mountain Music released Third Angle New Music’s production of Philip Glass and David Henry Hwang’s 1000 Airplanes on the Roof on Fri March 6. Find it at orangemountainmusic.com. More about Third Angle at thirdangle.org.

This Portland Bookstore Has Really Good Breakfast

Suzette Smith — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:26:00 -0700

There are few things in this life that motivate me as much as a good breakfast sandwich. by Suzette Smith

There are few things in this life that motivate me as much as a good breakfast sandwich. In my 20s, it was the only way to get me anywhere before noon. Ever since Portland’s best breakfast sandwich—Random Order’s B-list: a perfect combination of caramelized onion, egg, cheddar, and chipotle aioli securely encased in a firm bolo—became a casualty of the pandemic, I have been questing for a new nosh to replace her. It really feels like nobody caramelizes onions anymore (kind of thankless, I know), so I don't expect that perfect bolo of egg, onion, cheddar, and chipotle aioli to return to this earth.

In 2024, Literary Arts opened a bookstore on the ground floor of its new SE Grand headquarters, and an offhand comment by its executive director Andrew Proctor—made amidst conversations of seismic retrofitting and multi-year fundraising campaigns—had me thinking only of sandwiches.

See everything in the 2026 Spring Arts Guide collection here. Find a print paper here! If you haven't signed up for a subscription or regular contribution, we can do that for you too.

It is humbling to hear my own voice recorded, breathlessly exclaiming "breakfast sandwiches" at Proctor's mention of something the shop's cafe could one day carry. It only gets worse as I launch into a short rant about how Portland, for all its virtues, is greatly lacking in well-formed breakfast sandwiches.

“Bacon, egg, and cheese, man. Come on,” Proctor agreed.

“People always put it on a croissant or something,” I complained.

“That’s no good. You need strong bread—strong bread to withstand the heat and the grease,” he agreed.

And then I held onto that conversation for about two years.

Over the summer, Literary Arts Cafe opened with a shortened menu of coffee drinks and pastries. By winter, lunch was in, breakfast was up, and that prosciutto, egg, and cheese was served on a croissant. The irony is not lost on me, but I must admit it is an incredible croissant. Jen’s Pastries recently raised its cost due to the pricey French butter they use to make it.

If you have to put a breakfast sandwich on a croissant, this is the way. The salty little situation low-key exploded with flakes at my touch. The fluffy square of baked egg at its center contained more heft than the pastry surrounding it. This isn’t a sandwich to hold as you run for the bus. In fact, the cafe serves it with a perfectly-measured side salad of lovely greens and light, lemony dressing.

Literary Arts’ other sandwiches—chicken salad, grilled cheese, and a seasonal veggie option—arrive on sourdough so good the whole bakery behind it is called simply Good Dough.

The Good Dough bread also accompanies the Turkish eggs—poached and served with herbed yogurt—which are my favorite items on order. As a longstanding shakshuka fan, I was excited to see it on the menu, but found the cafe’s approach more lemony than I like. Still, shakshuka is a perfect breakfast food, and it’s difficult to find at eight in the morning in Portland. I value that.

If you’re a fancy coffee person, the Spice Cabinet has pink peppercorn in it, which gives an actual pepper bite without overpowering the other good things present: cardamom, licorice, ginger, and coconut.

Literary Arts cafe opens at eight in the morning and the bookstore doesn’t open until ten, so while you stand in line looking at a shelf of cool books you were meaning to pick-up, can you actually acquire them? Yes, you can just buy them at the coffee counter.

Literary Arts Cafe, 716 SE Grand, everyday, 8 am-8 pm (snacks only after 4 pm), more info, literary-arts.org.

The Faults in Our Stars

Anthony Hudson — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:24:00 -0700

The only horoscope column in the universe.

by Anthony Hudson

“Like sands through the hourglass, these are the stars of our lives…”—Nostradamus

Ours is an unprecedented time in astrological studies. Astrologers are setting themselves on fire in the streets. Conjunction-junctions are appearing with functions unseen since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Civil War, French Revolution, and the (First) American Revolution. Saturn’s move into Aries was supercharged by the Lunar New Year’s Fire Horse, riding in on a solar eclipse and spurring a time of massive transformative change. But more important than that—let’s gaze at what the skies have in store for you, personally.

Aries

(March 21-April 19)

Little Ram, congratulations on alienating your colleagues, and all with an email you wrote from under a blanket on the couch. You should reward yourself for all that hard work you took credit for by revenge quitting. Gatekeep yourself and show them who’s not girlboss anymore!

Taurus

(April 20-May 20)

Dear Taurus, who am I to argue with you? I’m not here to point out that you’re wrong, or that you haven’t thought through your new plan to become wonderful by swapping out Zoloft with lead-heavy protein powders. Because you’re right. It’s all going to work out.

Stupid Ex Larry Gemini

(May 21-June 20)

You know when you can tell an astrologer had one bad experience with one specific star sign and now they only write unfairly one-sided forecasts for that entire population? Yeah, that. Fuck you, Gemini.

Cancer

(June 21-July 22)

You’re cute like a little hermit crab, or a Tamagotchi, all bundled up in your emotions. And the fun part is learning which buttons on your Tamagotchi shell do what: which feeds, which poops, and which makes you scream out everything you’ve bottled up for years (Larry!).

Leo

(July 23-August 22)

You’re a shining star, Leo, but you could try a little harder. Look at your fellow Lion, Madonna, and all she’s done: Did you move to New York with only $35 and launch a five-decade career? Did you make it okay for women to talk about sex? Did you portray Breathless Mahoney in Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990)?

Virgo

(August 23-September 22)

You’re well-mannered and a good friend. But if you weren’t such an anal-retentive spendthrift who relied on self-devised methodologies for every possible moral and menial task, then maybe—just maybe—you wouldn’t still be a virgin, too. Try more plaid.

Libra

(September 23-October 22)

Oh, I’m a Libra and I’m so concerned with balance and beauty and harmony. I’m just so well-adjusted and peaceful and conflict-averse! Go outside and beat a man up. He probably deserves it.

Scorpio

(October 23-November 21)

Listen, Scorpio. You’re hot. But you can’t coast on looks, charm, and vampiric sexual prowess alone. The OnlyFans looks a little lackluster. Try more collabs, feet pics, filming from inside the hole? Wait, no don’t block me I’m renewing right now….

Sagittarius

(November 22-December 21)

Responding to a noise complaint at 3 am, police encountered five drunk, self-identified “Woo Girls,” each born under Sagittarius. Upon threat of sobriety tests, officers were subjected to a nonconsensual game of Twister, torn apart, and eaten alive. Go Sagittarius!

Capricorn

(December 22-January 19)

Ah, the Sea Goat: disciplined, dependable, and as practical as a goat swimming the ocean. Those weird panoramic goat eyes might make you a steely navigator, but be cautious of Pete Hegseth’s drones up above, out of sight.

Aquarius

(January 20-February 18)

Aquarius, are you an air sign or a water sign? You’re supposed to be air, so what you doin’ bailing all that water? You wanna be the girl with the most cake? Well, guess what? That’s Courtney Love, and she’s a Cancer. A real water sign! You need to commit.

Pisces

(February 19-March 20)

No, Pisces, I meant your astrological sign, not a divine one—and no, I don’t want ketamine. Yes, I would love to try aura photography. Wait, what? Psychedelic yeast caused the Salem Witch Trials? Were you serious about that ketamine? Oh, it’s a lozenge? What’s hhhhhappening to my lllllleggggggsssssssss?

Do This, Do That: Spring Arts 2026

Bri Brey — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 03:22:00 -0700

Take heed! Your spring arts and culture plans have arrived.

by Bri Brey Seven Films by Kelly Reichardt

THROUGH MARCH 22

(FILM) Clinton Street’s monthlong series for March centers the Pacific Northwest’s director supreme Kelly Reichardt, working near through her entire filmography. Novelist and Reichardt’s frequent artistic collaborator Jon Raymond will attend three screenings (Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, Showing Up) and offer post-viewing Q&As. If you missed Reichardt’s The Mastermind (2025), you’ll have another shot on March 22. (Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, $10, cstpdx.com) LINDSAY COSTELLO

Riot Queens

THROUGH MARCH 29

(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) You don’t know about the Compton Cafeteria Riots—we don’t live in San Francisco, and they don’t teach enough queer history in school—but maybe you should. In 1966, a group of trans women stood up to police who were targeting and harassing them, in an all-night restaurant in the Tenderloin neighborhood called Gene Compton’s Cafeteria. Someone allegedly threw a cup of coffee in an officer’s face. What happened next? Prolific playwright Mikki Gillette penned Riot Queens to bring us up to speed, based on her own extensive research. As Mercury critic Jenna Fletcher wrote in a review last summer: “Gillette’s plays offer the rare opportunity to support art made by and within queer community at a time where it’s more urgent than ever.” Read our full review! (Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne, $25 or pay as you’re able, fusetheatreensemble.com, mature audiences) SUZETTE SMITH

See everything in the 2026 Spring Arts Guide collection here. Find a print paper here! If you haven't signed up for a subscription or regular contribution, we can do that for you too.

Emily Wise: Meet Me at the Mothership

THROUGH APRIL 4

(VISUAL ART) The motto of Emily Wise's artistic output might be "the longer you look, the more you find.” Wise's last two exhibitions at Chefas Projects, Hair of the Banshee and Hands that Hold the Melting Rope, populated neon-hued acrylic compositions with cool girls, Irish banshees, and shadowy flora. Meet Me at the Mothership brings together more of Wise’s lucid dreams in painting form. Inspired by a recent experience in Utah’s desert terrain and envisioning the multivalent mothership as a “cosmological, terrestrial, and corporeal” figure, the show asks an interesting question: What is the maternal quality, exactly? Wise’s women scroll TikTok and witness mythical, light-spilling eggs in pursuit of the truth. (Chefas Projects, 134 SE Taylor Ste 203, stephaniechefas.com, all ages) LC

Minidoka on Our Minds

THROUGH JUNE 14

(COMMUNITY) Between August 1942 and October 1945, the US government forcibly moved over 13,000 Japanese Americans to a concentration camp in Minidoka County, Idaho, as part of a nationwide order to incarcerate those the government deemed “alien enemies” during World War 2. Minidoka War Relocation Center became the main destination for interned persons from Alaska, Oregon, and Washington. A new exhibition, Minidoka on Our Minds, explains the history of the site and presents it with artworks made by survivors and their descendants. For example, sculptures by Mira Nakashima were made with wood gathered by Ed Abe, a man who died collecting it during a snowstorm at Minidoka in 1942. (Japanese American Museum of Oregon, 411 NW Flanders, $8, jamo.org, all ages) SS

Carving by Shigeta Ouchida on view in Minidoka on Our Minds. COURTESY JAPANESE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF OREGON Mundo de las Mujeres

MARCH 11-21

(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) For the third year, Milagro Theatre celebrates playwriting and performance by Latina/e women with its Mundo de las Mujeres festival. For fans of staged readings, Mia Torres directs two—Erlina Ortiz’s Las Mujeres on March 11 and Alexis Scheer’s Laughs in Spanish on March 18. Andrea Menchaca Hall’s stand-up special Speaking American is the main event on March 21. (Milagro Theatre, 525 SE Stark, $5 + pay what you will, milagro.org) SS

Dies Irae, Desirée

MARCH 13-15

(MUSIC) If the words “classical music” don’t tend to grab your attention, consider that Third Angle New Music’s curatorial flavor trends toward experimental takes on the form. So far, their 40th anniversary concert series has explored the works of minimalist pioneer Steve Reich from inside Hopscotch’s interactive art exhibits, and brought a string quartet and clarinet ensemble to the World Forestry Center. Maria Finkelmeier and Brady Evan Walker’s UFO-laden chamber opera Dies Irae, Desirée is next on the docket, in which a YouTube streamer-turned-cult leader claims to communicate with aliens. Cast members Sarah Tiedemann and William Pyle also play flute and saxophone among other live instrumentalists. (Vault Theater, 350 E Main, Hillsboro, $30-$40, thirdangle.org, all ages) LC

Born in Flames

MARCH 13-15

(FILM) Fans of Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin will dig Lizzie Borden’s dystopian docu-fiction Born in Flames (1983), which imagines the fractured aftermath of a revolution that didn’t keep its promises. The director’s guerrilla approach blends real news footage with direct-action feminism; don’t blink and you’ll catch Kathryn Bigelow in a small role. (5th Avenue Cinema, 510 SW Hall, $7 or free for Portland State University students/faculty/alumni, 5thavecinema.com, not rated) LC

The Siren Theater Improv Giants

MARCH 14

(COMEDY) Whether performing or watching, improv is not for the faint of heart. When it doesn’t click, it really doesn’t click. But when it does? Goddamn it’s magical, and can hit heights seldom seen when attending the theater. Some of the best improv I’ve seen in Portland comes from the minds of the Siren Theater Improv Giants, featuring Shelley McLendon, Nicholas Kessler, Tony Marcellino (formerly of the legendary PDX group the Liberators) and Jed Arkley (Whiskey Tango). Alone, each member of this fantastic foursome are hilarious—together they combine to become a veritable Transformer of hilarity—so if you want to increase your chances of witnessing magic? These Giants are an extremely good bet. (Siren Theater, 3913 N Mississippi, 7:30 pm, $10-$20, sirentheater.com, 14+) WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY

Red Carpet Awards Watch Party with Ry Bred

MARCH 15

(FILM) Finally, a chance to whip out the actor-pun cocktail names you’ve been saving up all year. That is, should you wish to host your ungrateful friends at a home Oscars watch party. Another option: Get out there and judge the actor-pun cocktail names of any of the fine movie houses throwing their own Academy Awards soirees. Tomorrow Theater will have a pink carpet (!) and hilarious local queen Ry Bred providing commentary for…FOUR HOURS of speeches, play-off music, and celebrity outfits, projected on the theater’s big screen. (Tomorrow Theater, 3530 SE Division, 4 pm, FREE with RSVP, tomorrowtheater.org, all ages) SS

La Llorona

MARCH 18

(FILM) Few films manage to fuse folkloric terror with social ethics—in fact, though it’s billed as horror, Jayro Bustamante’s La Llorona (2019) might be in a category all its own. A retired general implicated in the Guatemalan genocide of native Maya communities cowers like a baby in his mansion as protests rattle the walls. But don’t worry. A supernatural force—the vengeful kind—penetrates his barricade. Note: La Llorona is not the schlocky The Curse of La Llorona, also released in 2019. Bustamante’s film is an atmospheric and far superior demand for justice. (Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, 7:30 pm, $12, hollywoodtheatre.org, not rated) LC

Jacqueline Novak

MARCH 21

(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Novak is a comedian interested in pursuits of the spirit—past life regression, Jungian dream analysis, Women Who Run with the Wolves. She blends amla powder into her smoothies, prioritizes beauty in the home (vintage Christmas blow molds), and channels self-optimization at all costs (through her Hobonichi planner). Yes, she’s particular and product-craving and also a podcaster (she co-hosts Berlant and Novak with fellow genius Kate Berlant), but Novak’s mind spins so quickly that you, too, will get caught in its centrifugal force. Her Emmy-nommed 2024 special Get On Your Knees was, on the surface, “about blow jobs,” but actually offered a dense philosophical exploration of sexual firsts. What will be the target of Novak’s obsession this time? (Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie, 8 pm, $50.14-$73.75, aladdin-theater.com, all ages) LC

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Ibram X. Kendi

MARCH 21

(READINGS AND TALKS) Historian and author Ibram X. Kendi won the 2016 National Book Award for his stark, massive Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which changed contemporary culture’s thinking on racism from a view that rooted it in personal prejudice to something continually reinforced by policy and power structures. His bestselling memoir How to Be an Antiracist showed readers the impact of prejudice across vast facets of our lives. Now Kendi’s newest work digs into great replacement theory and its many ghastly visages, which have existed through history but rarely been revealed revealed with the incisive gaze that Kendi wields. (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, 7:30 pm, $55 tickets include a copy of the book, powells.com, all ages) SS

Trans Town PDX 2026

MARCH 29

(COMMUNITY) Portland’s biggest Trans Day of Visibility celebration showcases the community’s talent, economic power, and joy. The day kicks off with an afternoon resource and mutual aid fair offering free haircuts, a market, food demos with vegan street-food champions Mis Tacones, jewelry making with Ally Lea, and Narcan training with No More Dead Friends. After the fair, a ticketed fundraiser hosted by two of Portland’s funniest comedians, Mx. Dahlia Belle and Ally J Ward, brings laughs and live music before the party moves to White Owl where Drag Race alumna Lexi Love headlines a lineup of “local legends.” All proceeds go to Werq Together, a nonprofit that offers peer support services, relocation assistance for folks fleeing hostile states, and trans-owned affordable housing. Show up and support this indomitable and inextricable part of the Portland community. (The Redd on Salmon, 831 SE Salmon, 2-9 pm, tickets $25+ or free for trans community members, instagram.com/transtown.pdx, all ages) BRI BREY

Amal El-Mohtar in Conversation with Kelly Sue DeConnick

MARCH 29

(READINGS AND TALKS) Amal El-Mohtar is that rare kind of writer who can build robust speculative worlds, then permeate them with gentleness and poetry. Having won Hugo and Nebula awards for her 2019 novella This Is How You Lose the Time War, El-Mohtar shifted to short stories with Seasons of Glass and Iron. The forthcoming collection (out March 24) compiles fairy and folk tales told through letters, journals, and reference materials. She’ll chat about it with comic book royalty Kelly Sue DeConnick. (Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside, 7 pm, $37.73, tickets include a copy of the book, powells.com, all ages) LC

Apple Hunters!

MARCH 31-APRIL 26

(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Closing out a season of producing works by women playwrights with ties to the Pacific Northwest, this staging of Apple Hunters! also concludes a six-year residency of Mellon Foundation playwright-in-residence E.M. Lewis at Artists Repertory Theatre. If you liked other works by Lewis—Magellanica (2018), True Story (2023), among others—make it your beeswax to see this one. Set in rural Washington, Apple Hunters! follows four lifelong friends on a quest for a potentially extinct apple cultivar. You know that these apple metaphors are really about being a man and friendship. (Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison, $5-$60, artistsrep.org, all ages) SS

FKA twigs / Brutalismus 3000

APRIL 4

(MUSIC) Lady in the streets, freak in the beats chameleonic artist FKA twigs bares it all with every release, her late 2025 album Eusexua being no exception. Though I’m partial to her more experimental early work, twigs’ output the last few years has largely been remix-ready festival anthems, the deeper cuts of which fit in nicely with any mixtape you’re pulling together for a crush. The only time I’ve seen twigs was at Seattle’s Moore Theatre on her Magdalene tour, back in her swordplay and pole dancing days—one of the best live shows I’ve ever witnessed. Let’s see what she’s got in store for us this time. (Moda Center Theater of the Clouds, 1 N Center, 8 pm, $50+, rosequarter.com, all ages) NOLAN PARKER

Amy Bay: oh deeear mee

APRIL 4-MAY 10

(VISUAL ART) Amy Bay’s latest solo exhibition continues to pull at the artist’s recurring conceptual thread: floral painting as a radical act. In the past, Bay’s compositions have zoomed in on ripe flora exploding from all angles, occupying each painting’s entire frame; her works have also functioned as feminist critiques of art history’s anti-flower stance and homages to all things decorative, patterned, and lush. In Bay’s 2024 exhibition The Book of Love, her petaled meditations focused on the comfort of these motifs—her latest, oh deeear mee, unfolds as a more mysterious “lamentation and celebration,” filling both of Nationale’s exhibition spaces with monotypes, works on paper, and paintings inspired by decorative floral wallpapers. (Nationale, 15 SE 22nd, nationale.us, all ages) LC

Twin Peaks, in entirety

STARTING APRIL 5

(FILM) That gum you like is going to come back in style, and by “that gum,” we mean “David Lynch’s entire Twin Peaks series.” The Pacific Northwest’s damn finest (sorry) cultural export will screen in entirety at Clinton Street Theater, “for the first time in history,” they claim. How has nobody done this before?? The year-long(!) program will open with Twin Peaks’ extended pilot “Northwest Passage,” obviously, followed by the second and third episodes all screened in one sitting. Laura Palmer is blue-lipped and wrapped in plastic, but you knew that. Time for a revisit. (Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, $20, cstpdx.com) LC

David Byrne

APRIL 7-8

(MUSIC) Indicative of his entire 50+ year career, David Byrne isn’t afraid of asking the tough questions on his new album Who Is The Sky? More cohesive than his last album-turned-Broadway-musical American Utopia, WITS? continues Byrne’s toeing the line between pure pop bliss, Studio 54 style, and the avant garde of Max’s Kansas City. All the while, he’s still critiquing us, himself, and the powers that (shouldn’t) be—though in a brighter tone than we’ve heard from the broad-shouldered cutie in a minute. Is the hopeful cheer coming from his recent marriage or the ever-elusive contentment of elders? Hard to say, but it feels good. (Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay, 8 pm, $104.22+, portland5.com, all ages) NP

Portland Panorama

APRIL 9-19

(FILM) Those who miss the now-defunct Portland International Film Festival (PIFF) will want to keep their eye on Portland Panorama. Returning for its second year, the fest is keeping after the idea of a multi-venue showcase of new international cinema and films from the Pacific Northwest. At time of press, we knew only that the kickoff film—screening April 9 at Cinema 21—would be Costa Rican drama Abril, in which writer and director Hernán Jiménez also co-stars. The other star? Heated Rivalry’s François Arnaud. Oh, I see. NOW you’re interested. (Various locations, $15 per screening, passes $150-350, portlandpanorama.org) SS

The Glass Menagerie

APRIL 18-MAY 20

(THEATER & PERFORMANCE) Well, if it’s going to be a Tennessee Williams play, it’s going to be about declining Southern gentility splattering extravagantly into full-blown decay. And if it’s going to be produced at Shaking the Tree and directed by Samantha Van Der Merwe, we’re more than likely going to see visuals we’d never expect. Williams coined the term “memory play” to describe The Glass Menagerie, as he felt his central character’s recollection of his mother and sister should be understood as subjective and non-realistic. This all leaves so much fertile ground for Van Der Merwe to move in, and we can’t wait. (Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant, $12-48, shaking-the-tree.com) SS

Making Earth Cool Earth Day Celebration

APRIL 25

(COMMUNITY) Sunnyside Environmental School and Making Earth Cool, among other Gaia-luvving organizations, will bring some environmental joie de vivre to the city on April 25. Their annual Earth Day celebration "serves as a poignant reminder that we are mere specks within the grandeur of the greatest masterpiece ever created." Okay, true!! Although we are but flecks of stardust darting across our majestic planet, the event gives us something to live for: gigantic puppets, live music, crafts, and a secular "Earth Ceremony." You're invited to dress up as your fave flora or fauna for a costumed parade through the Sunnyside neighborhood, too. (Sunnyside Environmental School, 3421 SE Salmon, 11 am-3 pm, FREE, makingearthcool.com, all ages) LC

Sunn O)))

APRIL 25

(MUSIC) Not that this has anything to do with Seattle drone monoliths Sunn O))), but imagine the deep shame of finding out you’ve been mispronouncing the name of one of your favorite bands for years. Anyway, on April 4 Sunn releases their first album in seven years (the longest time between Sunn releases to date))). “Glory Black,” the album’s first single, washes through your skull with vibrations most dark, then drops off around the 3:30 mark, dissolving into heavy, sparse piano. Are Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley getting soft as the band approaches their Pearl Anniversary? Not likely… Check out the show without ear protection and LMK how that goes. (Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th, 8 pm, $47.50+, roselandpdx.com, 21+) NP

Mystic crystal revelation

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 17:54:00 -0700

by Anonymous

Hey Anonymites, Friendly reminder that next week is Sunshine Week, so file public records request, question government officials, support independent journalism, and click on some fucking ads.

Everything Free!

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:38:00 -0700

by Anonymous

I'm gonna stop paying to go to concerts. The artists can sell their merch at the show on top of what they make for the booking, so screw that. I don't care who else the artist employs. The venue makes so much money on overpriced food and drinks too. I'm not gonna pay no cover charge to a local show either. Do I get a free drink from my cover charge? Why should I support the artist when they already get paid by the venue, get tips, food and drinks, and can sell merch? I'm not gonna pay for my groceries anymore because I don't support businesses, not even local ones. Especially the capitalist ones that don't compensate their employees properly. Who cares if businesses are gonna out of business because no one's coming in anymore, and everyone's stealing. I might steal shit too. They overcharge for the same thing I can get from another place for cheaper. Maybe I'll just pay the price of this soda because I saw it for 2 dollars and this place wants to charge me 3.50? I'm gonna stop paying for my lawyer, my doctor, my therapist, my dentist because they charge me too much when they already make so much money on everyone else. I think I'll stop paying my phone bill, and electric bill. When I go out of state, I'm not paying no sales tax because I live in Oregon. Hell, I'll stop paying my taxes too. Hell, I'll stop working so I don't have to get taxed. I don't drive so I'm not paying any tax for road improvements. Everyone should eat the cost at my expense because if I can't bargain for anything, what kind of world are we living in? Being a mooch will fix everything.

A Comedy of Turnovers Ends in Blazers Heartbreak

Cameron Crowell — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:00:00 -0700

Cameron Crowell by Cameron Crowell

Despite a promising nine point halftime lead, poor shooting and costly turnovers plagued the Portland Trail Blazers in the second half as the hometown team lost to the Charlotte Hornets for the second time in two weeks.

This game was U-G-L-Y, and neither team really had an alibi. Charlotte shot 39 percent from the field, to Portland’s 42 percent—well below the NBA league average of ~47 percent. Charlotte turned it over 17 times, to Portland’s 18. Both teams routinely dribbled the orange off their own legs, missed semi-contested layups, and committed silly offensive fouls. I counted at least three travel and double dribble calls, a rarity for professionals. But even in a game that neither team seemed particularly inclined to win, ultimately one team did have to leave Moda Center with a W.

From a bird’s eye view, these teams are nearly identical. Both sit at 10th place in their respective conferences, which is good enough to barely sneak into the NBA post-season. Both shoot A LOT of three pointers, with Charlotte shooting the third most per game and the Blazers right behind them with the fourth most. Both turn the ball over A TON, with the Blazers holding the dubious distinction of Most Turnovers in the League and Charlotte not far behind with fifth most. They’re both among the league’s elite offensive rebounding teams.

The teams’ star players even share in their polarizing nature. Blazers star player Deni Avdija, some NBA fans complain, gets too many free throws and is mired in the controversy of being lauded as a patriot by the Israeli Prime Minister War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. Meanwhile, Hornets star player LaMelo Ball seemingly only sort of cares about winning basketball games (as long as it results in House of Highlights posts), and is marred by being the worst driver in the state of North Carolina. The two teams coming together are all the ingredients of an ug-fest.

While the Blazers clung to their early lead, the game seemed like a slog late in the third quarter. I received a complaint from an unnamed Mercury staffer, who’s new to basketball fandom, right before a fan (also named Cameron) needed to make three free throws in 45 seconds for every fan in attendance to win a free smoothie from Jamba Juice. When the Hornets took the lead back at the beginning of the fourth, even a four point deficit felt hopeless.

With that said, there were still a few bright spots. Jerami Grant led the Blazers with 24 points on only 10 shot attempts (elite), and Toumani Camara guarded the Hornets’ mercurial LaMelo Ball, holding him to only 14 points on 16 shot attempts (really bad). In the first half, Scoot Henderson, who my friend’s kid calls “Scoop,” made four of his first five threes to get 12 quick points (though he only finished with 17). Toumani added a beautiful sideline out of bounds (SLOB) pass to Deni for a clean layup, though in retrospect this feels like a monkey’s paw for a SLOB at the end of the game. Even the fan made his three free throws to ensure everyone left with a free smoothie coupon…

The Blazers entered the game on the back of a dominant Sunday night win over the Indiana Pacers at Moda— a game that looked to breathe life into the young team after a deflating East Coast road trip. The Blazers’ All-Star Deni Avdija had just returned to the lineup after several weeks of on-again, off-again back issues. And while the Blazers briefly took a one point lead on a semi-transition three pointer by Toumani Camara with two minutes left in the game, the final minute ended in a true Shakespearean comedy of errors turnovers.

Camara’s three looked like the Blazers’ luck had turned, as the defensive stalwart forward shot a horrendous 2-11 from the arc before his late-game three. The Hornets came back down the court for LaMelo to brick a bad step-back three point attempt and the Blazers had the ball back with a lead. Next, Deni missed a point-blank layup. Charlotte bailed out the Blazers again when the Hornets’ only hot shooter, Kon Knueppel (4-8 from three), missed a wide open three. Blazer ball again with a chance to push their lead further. Backup center Robert Williams III missed a typically guaranteed alley-oop dunk. Portland fouled Charlotte’s Miles Bridges, who made both his free throws to retake the lead with just over a minute left.

Ultimately it was turnovers 16, 17, and 18 that cost the Blazers the game. With the clock running under a minute and trailing by one, Deni tossed the ball to Williams III in the corner. Panic immediately set in for the non-dribbling big man, who quickly shoveled it back to Deni—only the pass was nowhere near him (turnover 16). The Hornets’ Knueppel bricked a deep three point attempt, swinging his legs forward in hopes of shamefully baiting a foul on the contesting Williams III. Initially Knueppel got the call, and the Blazers’ hopes were dashed. Coach Tiago Splitter challenged the call and the refs said there was no foul, just a blocked shot by Williams III. A deep sigh, new life again breathed into the Blazers.

Deni then drove deep into the paint and tossed a lob pass to Williams III, who slammed the ball in for a redemption alley-oop dunk. The crowd went completely nuts as the Blazers took back the lead with 25 seconds left. However, the crooked refs (JK?) called a foul on Charlotte before Williams III got the shot off, and the Blazers had to attempt the play again. This time, Jerami Grant caught the ball at the three point line, then drove hard at the hoop and was called for an offensive foul (turnover 17) with 12 seconds to go.

The Hornets made both their free throws to increase their lead to three points. The Blazers took their final timeout with nine seconds left. Toumani attempted inbounding the ball to Deni, but his pass went sailing out of bounds (turnover 18). On the replay, it appeared the Charlotte defender grabbed Deni, but since the Blazers had just taken their final timeout, they were unable to challenge the call. The Hornets then made two free throws to go up five with three seconds left. Game over.

Actually, to complete the absurd tragedy, Scoop made a half-court shot at the buzzer, making the final score 103-101 instead of 103-99. This means that all Blazer fans received the free 100 point McDonald’s promotion. Only that promotion isn’t even free chicken nuggets anymore and requires the purchase of another item. Plus, I looked up Jamba Juice after the game and the Lloyd Center location went out of business. Whose ass is really going out to Mall 205 or Beaverton for a Razzmatazz? Not me. This sucks.

Mercury Music Picks: Big Stone Fruit Energy This Week With Peaches and Cherry Cheeks, Lo Steele's New Album, and Toody Cole at Star Theater

Nolan Parker — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:58:00 -0700

Nolan Parker by Nolan Parker

Not a lot to say by way of an intro this week. Everything is so heavy. Lean into yourself and your communities. Seek joy. Contribute to liberation in all the ways you're able. Music, live music especially, is one of the few places real community and joy can be found, so go find it.

Thursday, March 12 Lo Steele

For fans of Nubya Garcia, Yazmin Lacey, Toni Braxton

Portland soul songstress supreme Lo Steele releases her new record Only a Drop March 13. The album’s first single, “Greenz,” is a potent reminder of the power of the blues, where the genre comes from, and how it can sound in 2026. The deeply Black art form can’t be manufactured, Steele rightly points out, coming from musical stock as the daughter of Portland blues and jazz icon LaRhonda Steele. But don’t get it twisted—Lo is her own artist. She's also a fixture in our city’s theatre circuit (her portrayal of Gwendolyn Fairfax in Portland Center Stage’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest last year was lights-out funny) and a multitudinous force of creativity in the region. (Music Millennium, 3 pm, FREE, more info here, all ages)

Seffarine

For fans of Rodrigo y Gabriela, Shabv, Y La Bamba

If you’ve ever been to Morocco, you know the markets and squares of the country burst with life and voices and bodies (both human and animal) and music. The frenetic energy of the cultural and social hubs is music itself, an ancient music of gathering places that is otherworldly. Taking their name from the metalworking square in Fez, Seffarine sprang forth after singer Lamiae Naki and multi-instrumentalist Nat Hulskamp met at a coffeeshop in Fez, eventually marrying and forming the band. Now Portland-based, Seffarine is the bright femme vocals and Iberian-Arabic rhythms needed to undo the collective stress we are all feeling, fortifying us through to spring and summer. (Alberta Rose Theatre, 7:30 pm, more info here, all ages)

Friday, March 13 Sea Moss / Dwelling Unit / Obedient / Courtney Doorhinge

For fans of Trigger Object, Flesh Produce, Mika Miko

Moving from a house venue to Kenton Club is this unhinged lineup of some of Portland’s most ferocious noise and punk outfits. Sea Moss are here to destroy preconceived notions anyone may have concerning the sheer magnitude of harsh noise a two-piece is capable of. Punk-noise with a cabaret flair is the energy of Dwelling Unit, while Obedient rolls through with their justifiably livid poli-punk rage. (This will be Obedient’s first outing with new drummer, the wildly prolific Papi Fimbres.) First, and certainly not least, Courtney Doorhinge cuts all ties with reality as the show's opener. I hope there’s condiments! (Kenton Club, 8 pm, more info here, 21+)

Related: Read our review of Obedient's debut album Rastafarsi.

Friday, March 13 - Sunday, March 15 Dies Irae, Desirée

For fans of Kronos Quartet, 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, Meredith Monk

If the words "classical music" don't tend to grab your attention, consider that Third Angle New Music's curatorial flavor trends toward experimental takes on the form. So far, their 40th anniversary concert series has explored the works of minimalist pioneer Steve Reich from inside Hopscotch’s interactive art exhibits, and brought a string quartet and clarinet ensemble to the World Forestry Center. Maria Finkelmeier and Brady Evan Walker’s UFO-laden chamber opera Dies Irae, Desirée is next on the docket, in which a YouTube streamer-turned-cult leader claims to communicate with aliens. Cast members Sarah Tiedemann and William Pyle also play flute and saxophone among other live instrumentalists. (Vault Theater, various times, more info here, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO

Saturday, March 14 Cherry Cheeks / La Isla Electronica / Love In Hell / Xin

For fans of Lumpy & The Dumpers, Gravy Train, (punk) Tender Forever

Though I still don’t know if Portland’s Cherry Cheeks are chain punk or egg punk (or if people still use those designations), I do know that the pit fruit party punks hit it hard every show and hate cops—very cool. Spanish-language post-punks La Isla Electronica, AKA L.I.E., play tunes that either incite dance floor euphoria or the mosh pit mayhem, your call. Word on the street is they’ve got their debut LP in the works right now! Happy punks Love in Hell and acousti-punk Xin roll deep opening this North Portland punk hootenanny. (Turn Turn Turn, 8 pm, more info here, 21+)

Related: Read our review of La Isla Electronica's debut EP.

Sunday, March 15 Peaches / Pixel Grip

For fans of Le Tigre, Bijoux Cone, Vaginal Cream Davis

After chatting with Peaches ahead of her new album No Lube So Rude a few weeks ago, it was made abundantly clear that Peach is the real fucking deal. We talked about her transcendence into the realm of queer elders, the state of the world at the moment, and her first new album in 11 years. On No Lube So Rude Peaches doesn't shift focus away from the body and sex, but reframes thinking around time. As one hopes and expects of anything new from Peaches, the new album is filled with party-rocker anthems and so much rhyming. A personal favorite appears on "Fuck How You Wanna Fuck" when she rhymes progesterone with calzone. Sometimes you do want to meet your heroes. Pro tip: Tomorrow Theater is screening Peaches Goes Bananas the night before the show. (Crystal Ballroom, 8 pm, more info here, all ages)

Tuesday, March 17 Toody Cole / Forty Feet Tall / Chatter Box

For fans of Thee Headcoatees, Iguana Death Cult, The Traditional Fools

A long-lived life of rock 'n' roll, true love, and doing it herself is Portland legend Toody Cole. Founding member of our city’s greatest rock 'n' roll punishers Dead Moon, there’s no praise that can be showered on Toody that’s undeserved. Toody’s got lifetimes—plural—worth of stories, so buy her a whiskey and see if you can get a few out of her. Towing the line between angelic post-punk and hard-hitting post-hardcore is where you’ll find the Forty Feet Tall bad boys. I popped my knee so hard in their homecoming show pit at Mississippi Studios last month I thought I was going to pass out—that's what's up with FFT. The Chatterbox garage-punks round out this perfect Portland bill. (Star Theater, 8 pm, more info here, 21+)

Also very worth it…

Figure Eight / Spiderling / Yudai at Swan Dive - March 11, more info here

East Forest at Aladdin Theater - March 13, more info here

Nudity / The Intima / Vague Fugue at Wyrd Hut - March 13, more info here

Ogre single release at Trouble Bar - March 13, more info here

Snuffed on Sight / Forced to Suffer / Manos De Fierro / Mescaline Maniacs / Slime at High Limit Room - March 13, more info here

Stella Zekri / Batom / Mr. Drew at Process - March 13, more info here

Gabriel Kahane at Strum - March 14, more info here

Peaches Goes Bananas at Tomorrow Theater - March 14, more info here

Songs For Snow Plow Drivers / Smiling Strange / Lovable Wholes at Turn Turn Turn - March 14, more info here

Tiffadelic / Yana Uba / Graveyard Gossip / DJ Glitter Ghoul at The Coffin - March 14, more info here

Barna Howard / William Surly & The Barroom Gospel Band at Mississippi Studios - March 15, more info here

Spiritual Cramp / Bass Drum of Death / Fentanyl / Amusement at Polaris Hall - March 16, more info here

New Music Portland:

Having trouble working five days a week and deciding what to eat for dinner? No worries; Big Top has you covered. Elyse Schrock and Richard Alex Olsen—the public access variety show geniuses behind Playland Studios and The Big Box Set—dropped a sweet little single with the songs “Dinner Ideas” and “3 Days A Week.” They’ve never steered me wrong, and they won’t do you dirty either.

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio continue their outpouring of heavenly spiritual jazz with the release of Live at Public Records. Recorded live at NYC's Public Records in September last year, the album allows those who haven’t seen the Trio live to experience some of the magnificence of a Cosmic Tones performance, giving more personality to the individual members. For those who have seen the Trio, the recording reminds of the exuberant joy of the band’s music. As far as I can tell, the recording is only streaming here.

Half Portland, half Fort Lauderdale, FL, all hardcore. Today, the Gouge Away menaces share their new 7" single "Figurine." Lead singer Christina Michelle whiplashes back and forth between her singular screaming and a feigned innocence. Let them make art! Catch Gouge Away at Revolution Hall, opening for Wednesday on April 21 and 22.

Mercury writer and Sun Ra scholar Jesse Carsten has released a new EP under their Half Shadow moniker. Wind Inside is a four-song dalliance through the mind of an artist thinking on the coming and goings of the universe: the seasons, nothingness, life, love, gnosis, and death. All this ponderance comes full circle back to Carsten themself through desire, parenthood, the body, lovers, and flowers.

Idiot Vehicle just shared their new Dear Jacqueline EP. Self-described soft-grunge, might we add the distinction of California garage rock?

The irresponsibly heavy Machine Country are back with Inbred Bastard Killer. If you’re rightfully mad about the state of… everything right now, IBK makes the perfect sonic companion to burning down ICE facilities. See you there!

The MerKaBa Brotherhood consists of Roman Norfleet and Andre Raiah (AKA Brown Calvin), two members of Be Present Art Group. Their self-titled debut album is slated for a May 15 release on the venerable Mississippi Records. If the release’s first single is anything to go by, we’re in for the ecstatic Blackness that is the duo’s other groups (Brown Calculus and The Cosmic Tones Research Trio among them) shifting to a possibly more beat-driven sound. Head down to Mississippi—they might have what you seek.

Yesterday, Modest Mouse released a new single and added dates to their already massive spring/summer North American tour. One of the dates is in Alaska, very cool. Another is with My Chemical Romance, very interesting. Is the single heralding a new MM record? Perhaps. Is the new single good? Perhaps.

Hot damn, it’s always good getting new music from Papi Frimbres and the Orquestra Pacífico Tropical crew! Yesterday the cumbia heavyweights announced the June 19 arrival of their third album El Poder. In the same announcement breath, the band dropped El Poder’s first single “Fantasma.” OPT brings the Brown sound from way down, shaking hips from Mexico to Portland.

Trigger Object has unleashed upon this mortal realm her latest album Choking On a Crunchwrap Supreme as the World Burns. Affectionately known as COACSATWB, the artist’s latest force majeure is a punishing pollination of field recordings, synth work, and hardware electronics. Enjoy that last gooey bite—the end is nigh.

Portland Music News:

Longtime darlings of Portland’s neo-folk scene, The Builders and The Butchers, are getting the full nerd treatment. Long Tail Games has launched a GoFundMe in support of a new tabletop board game called Devil Town. Taking place in Anywhere, USA, Devil Town is a storytelling game based on the lyrics of the band. Will it crack you up like Cards Against Humanity or infuriate like Monopoly? Only one way to find out…

THE BLACK BYLINE: Your Guide to “Portland Nice”—And How to Avoid It

Donovan Scribes (fka Donovan Smith) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 09:50:00 -0700

by Donovan Scribes (fka Donovan Smith)

Port•land: a seaport in NW Oregon, at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers

Nice: pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory.

••••

In case y’all missed it: Last week during a public meeting, Metro Councilor Juan Carlos González was discussing his concerns surrounding housing policy in the region, when fellow councilor Mary Nolan—who is White—asked González to repeat himself… but this time "in English." González, who is Latino, was already speaking English. Two days later, Nolan asked to apologize to González from the dais. In a move that nobody asked for, Nolan then submitted their repentance to González in full Bad Bunny Super Bowl mode—100 percent Spanish. Then Nolan doubled down and delivered their apology in full English for the gringos in the audience.

It was bad, y’all.

The initial offense could have maintained a shield of plausible deniability— dismissed as an unfortunate use of a common phrase between people when having a misunderstanding. Instead the Duolingo-style apology, in which Nolan noted that they “disrespected [his] heritage,” read as cringeworthy; becoming a case study in a common affliction that befalls my hometown—called “Portland Nice™.”

My goal is not to sketch Councilor Nolan into a caricature. Viral moments such as these often lose context and build quick villains out of missteps. I’m just saying this haphazard kumbaya that had González noticeably uncomfortable was emblematic of the clash of ill-placed pleasantries, and the disconnect that comes with it in matters of race and politics around the Rose City.

Navigating Portland as a Person of Melanin means I am in constant contact with Portland Nice. It’s the veneer of embrace, acceptance, camaraderie, and oftentimes repentance. It’s the priority of keeping up appearances—of being pleasant or agreeable—or “down” without the actual demonstration to back it. It often requires us to develop a sort of fluency in what is said, and what is meant. Is this “niceness” permanent or performative?

My partner has been described as many things by those who know her as many things—gracious, thoughtful, funny, militant even at times—but nobody has described her as “nice.” She is White. She has never shied away from a conversation around race, gender, or any “hot button” issue of the day. When she’s ignorant about something, she states it. When she’s got an opinion, and if it differs from yours, you will absolutely know it. She holds no degree in Portland Performative Studies, which has likely resulted in a wide network of authentic relationships with her across many divides: racial, gender, political, geographical, etc.

I’m not much of one for fortune cookie-style mantras that refuse to deal with people being… well… people. The “allies should be seen, not heard” type of approaches to the work, in my estimation, are not real. Too often, the “not heard” piece only fuels Portland Nice—leaving folks to hold appearances of unity, while maintaining status quo beliefs internally.

While I also have an aversion to the word “ally,” I understand the sentiment and consider the progressive notion behind the word as noble. It has, however, been my experience that at times, people’s desires to be a self-designated “ally,” without true roots in the shared humanity that binds us—including disharmony and conflict—not only leads to social fumbles, but widens the bridge to progress.

And if progress is the goal, then we can’t get there with faux camaraderie or the inability to maneuver social missteps.

Together, friends, we can beat Portland Nice.

Before going any further, here are some examples of how the affliction might show up in your everyday travels around town.

1) Kicks off event with land acknowledgement—but has no intention to build with Indigenous communities during or after the event in any meaningful way.

2) Uses words like “compassion” and “accountability” to support policies that further criminalize poverty and/or advance mass incarceration.

3) Pays consultants heftily to create racial justice frameworks for organization: then expects experts in their field or emerging professionals to advance said frameworks for no pay (or does not engage said frameworks at all upon completion).

Such examples are hardly exhaustive, but offer a great jumping off point into both the overt and covert nature of the ailment. If you recognize such traits in yourself—fret not. The antidote is, essentially, to do the exact opposite of the above. Here are some tips on how you can combat Portland Nice:

1) PDX Housing Solidarity has Realtors that are forgoing their commission fees in support of Indigenous and Black people buying homes—no land acknowledgement needed. Take heed.

2) Support policies that are to the betterment of the whole. When in doubt—ask yourself questions like, “does this align more with the legacy of the Assata Shakurs of the world, or say, the John D. Rockefellers?”

3) Pay people for their time. The days of advisory committees and marginalized groups doing Herculean [read: consulting] work to be paid in “thank yous” are dead. Pay us… well.

Far be it from me to campaign to replace your BLM signs with “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. I’ve heard many of my folks lambast the Portland Nice dichotomy, saying something along the lines of “at least in the South I know what I’m dealing with”—I may have even said it a time or three. But upon further inspection, I’m unsure this holds the weight we think it’s meant to.

I’m building a park in St. Johns through my initiative The Kidz Outside. While laying down a street mural at the intersection adjacent to the park, I met a man who lived nearby and we started talking. As the conversation grew, he explained he was originally from Mississippi—noting the differences between the regions. He went on to tell a story of how as a teen he watched his adult mother have to answer “yes sir” to a boy his age. While Oregon and Mississippi share more DNA than most would acknowledge—this story did feel particularly Mississippi.

Conversely, that very day, a neighbor on that same block pleaded with me not to install a basketball court “because of the kind of kids it would bring in.” She was White. She said it nicely. Her dog whistles were more like snarls.

What undergirds the sentiment of “at least in the South I know what I’m dealing with” is a desire to sidestep the often performative nature of progressiveness in the Pacific NW, and engage with the reality of advancing actual progress. Portland is ripe with folks who have the latest updates of “DEI talk” downloaded on their mental hard drives. The question is, can we sidestep the overzealous head nods, or extra-thick apologies, and get in where we fit in? Can we realize the work is messy and people are complicated, but that all of this doesn’t have to be so hard if we just reach in and all pick up a paddle to prosperity?

Councilor Nolan’s misstep is hardly irredeemable. In the broader landscape of issues facing us today, it’s unlikely it will even make a dent in the public psyche for much longer. Ultimately, the first mishap really could have been cleared up with a private conversation—rather than later becoming a more egregious foot-in-mouth cultural misnomer.

May it, above all, act as a lesson from here on out. The two have reportedly had a private conversation since Nolan’s apology so—progress?

On that note—a word of advice to my dear readers. If you should ever come at me sideways (purposely, or inadvertently) and feel compelled to apologize later, do not seek to deliver your amends in my native “Ebonics.” I promise I don’t need that kind of apology. Ever.

Por favor.

Good Morning, News: Dame's New Cocktail Lounge, Trump Floats Plan to Deport US Citizens, and Rihanna's Attempted Shooter is Behind Bars

Courtney Vaughn — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:43:00 -0700

by Courtney Vaughn

If you’re reading this, you probably know the value of the Mercury’s news reporting, arts and culture coverage, event calendar, and the bevy of events we host throughout the year. The work we do helps our city shine, but we can’t do it without your support. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

Good morning, Portland! Today will likely be very wet, but a little warmer than yesterday, with a high of 54 degrees and a low of 44. We can expect showers throughout most of the day. Reminder: It’s OK to use an umbrella.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Today we’re following news in the Lund Report about a new Oregon law that was meant to prevent private equity firms from owning or controlling health care facilities here. The law was well-intentioned, but may not have enough teeth to be clearly enforceable. Nonprofit health care org PeaceHealth is carrying out a plan to contract out emergency services at three of its Oregon hospitals to a for-profit company based in Atlanta. “Observers say the new arrangement … appears to exactly mirror the sort of arrangement that the Oregon Legislature sought to block with a law passed last year,” according to the Lund Report.

• Here’s a little reminder that the Mercury publishes an excellent entertainment news column aptly called The Trash Report every week for your enjoyment. If you’re thinking to yourself, “but I don’t read or care about celebrity gossip columns,” that’s because you don’t know any better. Though to be fair, none are as good as ours, so I can’t blame you if you’ve been quick to dismiss news about hot, rich, and often obnoxious people. Give our girl Elinor Jones a read.

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• This weekend marks the Portland Shamrock Run, where a horde of people in compression pants and sneakers with better endurance than you will take over a stretch of downtown to sprint for a 5K, 8K, or half marathon. Expect some road closures on Sunday, March 15, especially along Naito Parkway.

• Portland Public Schools plans to cut several high-level administrative positions in the district as it contends with a $50 million budget gap. The school district is proposing other ways to close its budget deficit, like asking staff, including teachers, to take furlough days next year.

• Portland was pretty stoked when Damian Lillard bid adieu to Milwaukee and returned to Rip City to once again don the Trail Blazers jersey. The man is invested in Oregon, literally. He owns a Toyota dealership in McMinnville and most recently, he launched Honorable Mention–a new sports lounge inside the Benson Hotel. Lillard’s cocktail and culinary journey includes major business partners from the likes of Urban Restaurant Group, restaurateur JP Duperrier, and Moda Health’s president, to name a few. Mercury editor Katherine Chew Hamilton has all the delicious deets on Dame’s new bar.

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• The US military launched strikes on 16 Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil supply channel along the Persian Gulf. Axios reports the strikes were a preemptive move, amid concerns that Iran was placing mines in the strait. Mines—explosive devices placed in waterways to destroy boats and ships—would be deadly and pose a serious threat to commercial shipping in the waterway, as well as the transport of oil. Reuters reports that the U.S. and Israel-led war against Iran has already put major constraints on global shipping and oil within the Strait of Hormuz. In response, multiple countries have agreed to release a stockpile of oil to combat the disruption. Meanwhile, Trump still can't articulate exactly why we're helping Israel go to war with Iran, or how long the US will stay involved in the conflict.

Trump: we're gonna kill you all. we're gonna regime change you. we want nothing less than unconditional surrender Mojtaba: guess we're going down together then trump: [surprised pikachu.jpg]
— Sky Marchini (@sky.skymarchini.net) March 10, 2026 at 7:39 PM

• In bizarre celebrity news, a 35-year-old woman from Florida is in custody and faces attempted murder charges after shooting at the home of pop singer Rihanna and her family at the singer’s Los Angeles mansion on Sunday. Rihanna and her partner, A$AP Rocky, were reportedly home at the time of the shooting.

• We already knew US citizens were being caught up in immigration enforcement and even killed by federal agents, but now, Trump appears to be floating an idea to deport US citizens convicted of crimes to El Salvador. This could be another one of his half-cocked ideas he rattles off without thinking, or it could signal some extension of this administration's already illegal tactics that winds up doing serious harm and ties up the courts who have to explain the Constitution to federal attorneys who probably already know but still get paid to pretend they don't.

When the world feels dismal, try getting a plant!

@saintplanthony
Our country has gone rouge 💅
♬ Corporate Music(863541) - Draganov89

Fair Transit = Fareless TriMet

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:53:00 -0700

by Anonymous

We already pay the bulk of the TriMet operating budget through (mostly employment) taxes (49%), federal operating grants (13%), state and local revenue (8%). That’s a total of 70% that everybody has already paid—even folks who aren’t passengers. Passenger revenue is only covers 6% of the TriMet budget. https://trimet.org/budget/index.htm Why are we expected to cover an additional 6% via fare? If TriMet were fareless, it would attract more riders. More riders would make rides safer and garner more support for public transit. More support means more tax revenue. More revenue means more routes and greater frequency. This is a virtuous cycle. Instead of blaming fare evasion for budget crises, blame the austerity. Fewer routes making fewer trips makes TriMet less reliable. So, Mooch City, stop crying about your neighbors evading 6% and start demanding your electeds and the TriMet board to grow up and implement the fareless transit system Portland deserves.

Damian Lillard Opens a Sports Bar in a Swanky Downtown Portland Hotel

Katherine Chew Hamilton — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:49:00 -0700

Honorable Mention is now open in the basement of the Benson.

by Katherine Chew Hamilton

Blazers star and hometown hero Damian Lillard is bringing Dame Time to the local food and drink scene. On Friday, March 6, Lillard and his business partners officially opened Honorable Mention, a sports bar—actually, it calls itself a luxury sports lounge—in the basement of the historic Benson Hotel in downtown Portland.

Honorable Mention features vaulted ceilings, round banquettes, cozy couches, tucked-away tables, and cushy bar seats. Behind the bar and along the walls, TVs play not just sports, but black-and-white photos and video clips of trailblazing (!) Black athletes. The menu features beer, wine, and over a dozen cocktails, plus fancy versions of classic sports bar snacks, tavern fare, and steaks.

“Portland is my home,” Lillard said in a press release. “When I think about helping build this city back up to what made me and many others fall in love with it, I know that starts with presenting people who come here with an experience we can all share—fellowship, fun, good food, and safety. I look forward to building on this as we continue to lift Portland back to what it once was.”

The food served at a recent press event was a slam dunk—highlights included corn ribs, beet-pickled deviled eggs, buffalo wings, braised beef nachos, fried chicken, charred cabbage and broccolini, and steak with brown butter bearnaise. And the cocktails we tried, from a rum, lime, and orgeat number topped with coconut whip to a figgy Manhattan, were nothing but net.

Honorable Mention is the third restaurant inside the Benson Hotel, joining steakhouse and cigar bar El Gaucho and lobby bar and restaurant The Palm Court. Along with Lillard, its owners include JR Duperrier, who works in marketing for Adidas and is also a restaurateur (he’s a partner in Janken, the vibey Asian fusion restaurant in Northwest Portland); David Lucas, son of former Trail Blazers star Maurice Lucas who leads a nonprofit named after his father; Moda Health president Dr. William Johnson; and Mark Byrum from Urban Restaurant Group, the folks behind several spots around town including Fuller’s Coffee Shop and Fuller’s Burger Shack, Brix Tavern, and the Benson’s own Palm Court. Behind the food is chef Bobby Brown, Urban Restaurant Group’s culinary director. (A LinkedIn search reveals that Bobby Brown is a former chef de cuisine at Los Angeles’s uber-pricey grocery store Erewhon, famously home of the $20 smoothies.)

There’s nothing else like Honorable Mention in Portland, where sports bars aren’t a huge part of the local scene, let alone luxury sports lounges. But maybe it’s just the assist Portland needs.

Honorable Mention, 309 SW Broadway, Sun-Thurs 4 pm-11 pm, Fri-Sat 4 pm-midnight, honorablementionpdx.com, IG: @honorablementionpdx

SAVAGE LOVE: Poly Under Duress

Dan Savage — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:22:00 -0700

Some of us start out poly, some of us achieve poly—others have poly thrust upon ’em.

by Dan Savage Dear Readers: I’m off this week. To tide you over until I’m back, the tech-savvy, at-risk youth pulled some classic “PUD” questions from the archives. A PUD, of course, is someone who is “poly under duress.” Because while some of us start out poly and some of us achieve poly, others have poly thrust upon ’em. These are their stories.—Dan I’m a 25-year-old woman currently in a poly relationship with a married man roughly 20 years my senior. This has by far been the best relationship I’ve ever had. However, something has me a bit on edge. We went on a trip with friends to a brewery with a great restaurant. It was an amazing place, and I was sure his wife would enjoy it. He mentioned the place to her, and her response was NO, she didn’t want to go there because she didn’t want to have “sloppy seconds.”…

[ Read more ]

Good Ole Mooch City

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 09:34:00 -0700

by Anonymous

I was standing up front by the bus driver because I only had 4 stops to go, after just boarding. We roll on about 20 ft and the driver stops. I saw the dude on the right waving, not at a stop or not running. I eventually learned the driver stopped because he saw a bicyclist on the left at the crosswalk. By happenstance, the dude got picked up, then made no effort to pay. A "regular" citizen walked on, "thank you, appreciate it." So, it really shouldn't be any surprise to Portland why TriMet is going through budget cuts. Those machines not only accept the hop card, but cash, or chip cards too. And an explanation is accepted too, I'm sure. So, there really is no excuse for not paying, and especially to feel entitled to not even say why you can't pay. The "pandemic" is over from years ago. My neighbor is a bus driver, and explained it to me like this. Each person that rides for free adds up not to just a few bucks. But to thousands and thousands of dollars just for him. Then if you add up every other driver this is happening to, can you imagine the financial loss? Hard times? True indeed. But if you don't have gainful employment, ask yourself why? Why can't you afford $2.80? Why do you think it's your right to not pay for a service? Why can't you support yourself? Do you even care for that matter? I'll say the answer is no because the world owes him. Because this dude knows he'll get away with it and knows the drivers can't force payment either. I'm so sick of people who cannot support themselves. How do people sleep at night, and justify their lives this way?

Good Morning, News: Weird City Hall Power Dynamics EXPOSED, Elephants Delicatessen Caught Fire, and the Trump Administration Doesn’t Know What It’s Doing in Iran (or Anywhere, for That Matter)

Taylor Griggs — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 07:40:00 -0700

by Taylor Griggs

If you’re reading this, you probably know the value of the Mercury’s news reporting, arts and culture coverage, event calendar, and the bevy of events we host throughout the year. The work we do helps our city shine, but we can’t do it without your support. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

Good morning, Portland! It's set to be another somewhat-drizzly, cool day, like yesterday. We could see some pretty heavy rain later in the week, most likely starting tomorrow and not today. But we are heading into a time of year with unpredictable weather, so it's hard to say exactly what to expect. Don't blame me if you get rained on (or if you don't!) is what I'm saying.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• The Mercury has obtained public records that provide a peek behind the curtain into the strange power dynamics at Portland City Hall. The records show the influence Northwest Oregon Labor Council executive Laurie Wimmer has on city politics, an influence she seemed especially keen on flexing during the City Council president election earlier this year. If you've never heard of Wimmer, it may be because she mainly stays behind the scenes—despite clearly having a lot of power in local politics, she isn't even a registered lobbyist with the city. But Wimmer has done a lot of lobbying, including sending many texts to councilors' private phones over the last year. The records, reported by our intrepid Jeremiah Hayden, reveal that even under a new government structure meant to increase transparency for Portlanders, some well-connected figures are quietly maintaining—and using—power. Read the full story here!

New public records give insight into a Portland city councilor’s idea to sue the city, let the mayor break a tie, and decide the council’s president in January. A longtime labor leader told the Mercury she was “an observer,” but public records starkly contrast her laissez-faire, big tent narrative.

[image or embed]
— Jeremiah Hayden (@jeremiahhayden.bsky.social) March 9, 2026 at 9:01 PM

• Last month, Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton became the first major contender to declare her candidacy for the county chair position being vacated by Jessica Vega Pederson. She was quickly joined by her fellow commissioner, Julia Brim-Edwards. There are still several months for other potential contenders to file for the seat before November's election, but whoever takes the helm faces an uphill battle marked by steep budget cuts, a homelessness crisis, federal overreach, and a drug treatment program that has tested voters' confidence in county leadership. Find out more in Abe Asher's story for the Mercury.

• A two-alarm (meaning, pretty bad) fire broke out at the flagship Elephants Delicatessen in northwest Portland early this morning. Reports indicate Portland Fire & Rescue responded to a fire at the restaurant on NW 22nd Ave and West Burnside around 1 am. The situation is still developing and the cause of the fire is currently unknown, but the structural damage appears pretty significant.

• Your weekly calendar is here! If you're wondering where to watch the Academy Awards this Sunday among fellow lovers/haters of ballet critic Timothée Chalamet and cat critic Jessie Buckley, inquire within. But there's other stuff going on this week, too: the Trail Blazers play the Charlotte Hornets TONIGHT, there's Irish boxing at the Waterfront Park and Richard Hell is still cool (with a re-release by New York Review of Books). Find out more in this week's Do This, Do That.

• New preliminary injunction just dropped:

BREAKING NEWS: A federal judge in Oregon just issued a preliminary injunction, blocking federal agents from using tear gas and other chemical crowd control devices on protesters at the ICE building in Portland. #orpol #breakingnews

[image or embed]
— Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield (@agdanrayfield.bsky.social) March 9, 2026 at 6:37 PM

• Yesterday, PSU President Ann Cudd released her proposal for ending the financial crisis that has plagued the university for years at this point. Cudd announced that PSU is pursuing retrenchment, a formal downsizing process, which could result in major cuts to 19 departments at the university, including history, philosophy, economics, politics and criminal justice. PSU's well-regarded university studies program could be eliminated entirely. The decision will have far-reaching impacts—of course, for faculty, staff, and students, but also for all Portlanders. Cudd said her proposals are far from final, and ultimate decisions will be made with input from students and the faculty union. But it's not looking pretty. Bill Knight, president of faculty union PSU-AAUP, called the proposed cuts a "decimation of some of the most crucial forms of learning that we offer students here." At a time when PSU's enrollment is dwindling (a primary reason for its budget woes), these cuts could lead to a death spiral.

• Ok, here's some good(ish) news...Leach Botanical Garden, the beloved outer Southeast Portland park, will remain open at least a few more months. Last month, Leach Garden Friends staff said the garden was on the brink of closure, warning the park didn't have enough money to stay afloat even through March. But people stepped up and donated about $275,000 in just a month, providing the park with enough income to stay open at least until June. Hopefully, they can find a more sustainable revenue stream at that point.

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• Want to know what's going on in Iran? Well, don't ask President Trump. At a press conference yesterday, Trump shared some...words....about the ongoing US war on Iran, and they certainly didn't inspire confidence, or really provide any understanding about what's going on/what he has planned, if anything. Trump said the US military is "achieving major strides toward completing our military objective," adding that "some people" could say the objectives are "pretty well complete." Who are those people? It's unclear. Trump said "we could call it a tremendous success right now" and leave, or "we could go further, and we're going to go further." Alright. Sounds like he's making it up as he goes along, which is not so great when the lives of millions (or more) are at stake.

As for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth...he told reporters this morning that “today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.” He also said Iran has fired the "lowest amount of missiles they have fired yet" over the last 24 hours. So, the US is ramping things up as Iran attempts to de-escalate? Got it.

• Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine, and gas prices went up in the United States, and Americans freaked out so much they decided Trump should be president again? (To be fair, a lot of people were concerned about the price of eggs, too.) Republicans were happy to blame then-President Biden for the cost of living increases back then, but now that gas prices are rising because the US and Israel have started a war in Iran, the mood is a littleeee different. At a press conference yesterday, Trump said the spiking oil prices "don't really affect us." The day before, he said rising oil prices are a "small price to pay," calling anyone who says otherwise "fools." There's so much to be said here about how the global petroleum economy has rotted everyone's brains, but I'll just say: If there's anything Americans hate, it's rising gas prices. So, this is bad news for our president, and he certainly knows it.

As the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran threatens global energy supplies and the broader economy, "What we're seeing is just one of the clearest depictions yet of the frailty of a global order that is grounded in fossil fuels," says @antoniajuhasz.bsky.social.

[image or embed]
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow.org) March 10, 2026 at 6:56 AM

• All JetBlue flights were grounded for about 40 minutes early this morning as the airline dealt with a system outage. The information that the Federal Aviation Administration had grounded all Jetblue's flights at the request of the airline was first reported with very little information, so this originally seemed like it could be a more interesting story, but as it turns out, it's not that big of a deal. Good to know the Federal Aviation Administration is still responding to this type of thing, though.

• Northwest Georgia voters will decide who should replace former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in a special election today. As some of you may know, Trump and Greene had a big falling out last year, possibly due to Greene's criticism of Trump's relationship with Israel and handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, but also because her feelings were hurt when he told her not to run for Senate. Anyway, I can't say any of the candidates in this race seem amazing (this was Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, after all), but Trump has only endorsed one of them, a guy named Clay Fuller. If Fuller wins, does that mean Trump is more influential than ever as a kingmaker? No—we're talking about the district that elected Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's not necessarily a bellwether for how the rest of the country is feeling. If Fuller loses, the analysis could be more interesting, but let's not pin all our hopes and dreams on a random GOP race happening on a random Tuesday in March, ok?

• Finally, protect Puma at all costs!!!! And be nice to your sensitive colleagues and pals. And yourself. Things are hard. TTYL, xoxo!!!

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Inside the Race for County Chair: Financial Woes, Homeless Services, and Capitulating to Trump

Abe Asher — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0700

Two current commissioners are vying to lead Multnomah County in 2027, each promising a new governing style.

by Abe Asher

The race for chair of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners has begun in earnest.

Last month, Commissioner Shannon Singleton became the first major contender to declare her candidacy for the position being vacated by Jessica Vega Pederson. She was quickly joined by her fellow commissioner, Julia Brim-Edwards. Voters will decide in a ranked choice election in November who will take the helm.

Singleton, who was elected to the Board in 2024 in a special election to represent a district that covers North and Northeast Portland, told the Mercury that she joined the race because she believes she can better serve the county as an executive rather than a legislator.

“I think I’ve been able to get a lot of things done in my role as commissioner for District 2—I’ve also focused a lot on some district-specific things,” Singleton said. “As chair, I’d have the ability to do some of the de-siloing work I think needs to happen.”

Brim-Edwards, a former Nike executive, served three non-consecutive terms on the Portland Public Schools board. She said she too believes executive power is the best way to drive change.

“Providing leadership and effective management from the chair's role is going to be the best way, I think, to drive change, get the county back on the right track, [and] improve accountability and transparency,” Brim-Edwards said.

Singleton and Brim-Edwards may not have the race to themselves for long. Former Commissioner Sharon Meieran, who served until January 2025 and lost a run-off to Vega Pederson four years ago, is also reportedly mulling a run and has published a campaign-like website laying out her vision for the county’s future.

The full field of candidates for the position will likely present an ideological contrast on a number of key issues, but the tenure of the next chair may be defined in large part by a major budget crunch that could lead to numerous cuts across departments and has possibly harmed the public’s perception of its work.

“Both the city and the county are struggling with revenue streams and the ability to fund what they want to fund, and that’s just driving what may appear like governance problems, but it's really just [an inability] to fill budget holes,” Terry Harris, a member of budget advisory committees for Multnomah County, said. “I think that is not going to change between now and whoever comes in in the next election.”

Brim-Edwards said that, given the county’s budget situation, her experience with budgeting at PPS is one of her foremost qualifications for the chair position.

“Frankly, when you have fewer resources, you need to decide what are the most important priorities and fund those first,” Brim-Edwards said. “And I have a track record of having done that.”

Singleton said the budget stress the county is currently facing will necessarily shape how the new chair approaches the position.

“We’re not in a position to be adding new programs,” Singleton said. “This is about us looking at where are we doing the best work. What are county core services, and how do we really focus on that?”

Part of Singleton’s pitch is that she won’t need a big budget to accomplish one of her primary objectives as chair: integrating services across the county that she believes are counterproductively siloed.

One example Singleton highlighted was the county’s pretrial services, through which people are connected either to the Department of Community Justice or the Sheriff’s Office in an effort to ensure they are ready to appear in court. The majority of the county’s pretrial clients already have a case manager in one of several county departments, but as of now, there is no care coordination across those departments.

“As we’re looking at budget reductions, we have to look for those opportunities to be more efficient—because we don’t have the funds, necessarily, for somebody to have three different case managers when they could have one case manager,” Singleton said.

Part of what Brim-Edwards is offering is not budget-related either: she said she wants to make the county’s operations more data-driven, and that she’ll offer a change in leadership style from Vega Pederson—saying she views the role of chair as the “leader of a strong, effective commission” and not as a “dictator.”

Still, the budget situation may necessitate further cuts that will test the political strength and priorities of the new chair.

In last year’s budget, the only offices that did not see their budgets reduced were the Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office—the outcome of a public battle between Vega Pederson and District Attorney Nathan Vasquez that saw Brim-Edwards side with Vasquez over the current chair.

Brim-Edwards connected her support for law enforcement funding to her focus on supporting local businesses, which she said is of particular importance with the county’s economy lagging and a national recession possibly looming.

“I have a background of working on economic development issues and how to support thriving businesses, and frankly one of the big issues right now is the lack of a functioning public safety system,” Brim-Edwards said, noting that her approach to the issue differs from Singleton’s.

The debate about public safety approaches and funding levels are connected to a larger debate that Harris believes will define the election this fall.

“In an open seat, it’s going to be on, ‘Well, what are you going to do about housing? Given the budget that we have and our responsibilities to taxpayers and our charter and our relationship with the city?’ I think that’s what it will come down to,” Harris said.

Singleton, who formerly directed the since renamed Joint Office of Homeless Services and led the housing nonprofit JOIN PDX prior to her election to the county commission, said she believes the county needs to reposition itself in relation to work on housing.

“The work of the Homeless Services Department has been overly focused on that emergency response—unsheltered homelessness and shelters,” Singleton said. “And I think primarily that's because we have allowed our partnership with the City of Portland to be focused on just that end of the spectrum.”

Singleton said the result is that the city and county have been less focused on how people can be successfully transitioned out of homeless services and into long-term housing—a key issue in how she is approaching the intergovernmental agreement between the city and the county that is set to expire shortly into the next chair’s term.

Brim-Edwards, meanwhile, made pushing for treatment requirements in the county’s deflection program one of her priorities during her first years in office and trumpeted her efforts aimed at “ending street encampments” in her campaign announcement. She has been endorsed by Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, who has been strongly focused on increasing shelter capacity.

In addition to Wilson, several moderate members of the Portland City Council have endorsed Brim-Edwards; more progressive councilors have lined up behind Singleton.

One area in which the current Board of Commissioners and the candidates for chair appear largely aligned is in the county’s response to the threats posed by the increasingly belligerent Trump administration.

“I do not believe there is anything we can do that makes Oregon and Portland and Multnomah County not a target, and so I'm not looking to ever start to pre-comply with things that we don’t think are right, that aren’t aligned with our values, and that we think are illegal,” Singleton said.

Singleton, who is a trained MigraWatch volunteer, said she wants to see elements of the immigration defense work happening in her neighborhood in North Portland happen elsewhere in the county.

“I want us to continue to fight,” she said.

Sprained

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 02:35:00 -0700

by Anonymous

After a week of recovering from a bad sprained ankle, in bed, and house bound, I went to work for 30 hrs instead of the normal 40 hrs. My job is 100% walking. Oh the pain every STEP of the way, and basically learning a new way to walk. First thing is, getting anywhere takes twice as long. Getting to the point, I may have been too ambitious with work, then grabbing some groceries because housebound, and getting to my bus which is doable within 30 min, but I allowed myself 45 min. Still, twice I missed the bus. The second time was a 12 hr day, which was my Fri. I was excited because it was my Fri and I made it through the work week. I have 4 options for getting home, with 3 routes having 20 min walks. Yes, I missed the bus taking me closest to my house and the next bus would've been 45 min. I chose a route home which can be very regretful and it was. It's a busy route, I knew. Dropping off or picking up every stop. I could've had a chance to meet up with my main bus, but here's why I should've known it wouldn't happen. Fucking people. Taking their time like they have all the time in the world. Can't find payment. Questions. Taking sweet as time loading a bike. Then, 2 ramps deployed. People who are very capable but just completely incompetent and needy. I have a fucking sprained ankle and did everything I could to not inconvenience anyone and all these fucking people have no problem inconveniencing anybody. What a nightmare. No wonder humanity is hopeless.

In the Shadows: Records Show Labor Leader’s Campaign to Influence City Councilors

Jeremiah Hayden — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 20:30:00 -0700

Labor Council Secretary Laurie Wimmer privately suggested councilors sue the city to stop “MAGA of the left” from choosing council president. by Jeremiah Hayden

During the City Council president vote earlier this year, Portlanders may have been surprised to hear City Councilor Loretta Smith (D1) say she wanted to use her office funds to sue the city. After multiple rounds of deadlock, Smith wanted to challenge City Attorney Robert Taylor’s 2025 interpretation of the government charter, outlined in a memo, that said the mayor cannot break a tie during a council leadership vote, because the mayor is not part of the Council.

“I would like to ask that we get a declaratory judgment from a judge to view our charter so that we can have an outside person tell us what was meant,” Smith said. “Until we do that, we're going to be going back and forth, back and forth.”

New records obtained by the Mercury show the idea did not come from Smith alone. Records suggest it came from Northwest Oregon Labor Council (NOLC) Executive Secretary-Treasurer Laurie Wimmer, a hidden hand in local politics. And the idea wasn’t just to find a way to break a tie. It appears it was one of two pathways floated by local attorney Misha Isaak, which Wimmer believed would give then-President Elana Pirtle-Guiney the position for at least another year.

“Misha I has the opinion that the charter contemplated mayoral tie breaking for ALL biz that comes before Council and thinks Taylor erred,” read a text message Wimmer sent to Pirtle-Guiney on her personal phone the morning of January 14.

Wimmer was one of a handful of people who brought “Labor For Elana” signs to City Hall during the proceedings.

Later that day, the Council instead elected Jamie Dunphy (D1) to serve as its new president.

Asked immediately after the vote what she thought of the election of Dunphy—one of 11 candidates NOLC endorsed on the campaign trail in 2024—Wimmer distanced herself from the decision-making process.

“I’m an observer,” Wimmer said. “This is their business; it’s none of mine,” she later added.

The legal advice texted to the Council president's private cell phone about critical city issues raises questions about how well-connected figures quietly maintain power under a young government structure and recent charter changes that were supposed to increase transparency for Portlanders. It also highlights Wimmer’s behind-the-scenes efforts to whip votes and block any of the six progressive officials—colloquially known as “Peacock,” for “progressive caucus”—from the leadership position, despite her claims.

“This artificial moderate versus Peacock thing really doesn't work,” Wimmer told the Mercury January 14. “It's not a very nuanced way of dividing up differences of opinion.”

But a year of public records obtained by the Mercury between Wimmer and all 12 councilors’ offices starkly contrast Wimmer’s laissez-faire, big-tent narrative.

The records indicate the labor union executive was more than an observer during the proceedings, and has consistently influenced councilors’ decisions since early 2025. Wimmer did not respond to the Mercury’s multiple requests for comment.

Wimmer has a storied history in Oregon politics. Her credentials include working as a state lobbyist for the Oregon Education Association for over 23 years, where she helped pass the Student Success Act in 2019 to increase public school funding. Prior to that, she co-founded and chaired the Oregon Revenue Coalition. She ran for the Oregon Legislature twice, in 1996 and in 2020. Wimmer was elected to the only full-time elected position at NOLC in 2023, and is a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555.

NOLC is one of roughly 500 state and local labor councils comprised of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)—an association of member unions designed to advocate on behalf of workers at the state and local level. It faced an internal clash last April when its board, including Wimmer, tried to bring Portland’s police union into its ranks.

Most recently, Wimmer was tapped to participate in a new bi-monthly city workgroup called the Financial Stabilization and Recovery Plan, co-led by Portland’s Chief Financial Officer Jonas Biery, Councilors Mitch Green and Eric Zimmerman, and others. Details about the group are expected to be announced soon.

Despite her assertion, records show Wimmer deeply influenced the council president proceedings in January.

In the message she sent January 14, Wimmer told Pirtle-Guiney that Isaak, the attorney, saw two possible options to allow the mayor to break the tie and reelect Pirtle-Guiney. They could reverse language in city code, or get a court to issue a declaratory judgement on the matter. That, Wimmer said, would postpone the vote until a ruling was issued.

“If the outcome of either path goes as we believe it will, you hold the gavel another year—time enough to see what the 2026 elections yield,” Wimmer said in the text message.

Pirtle-Guiney said multiple people were talking about how to break the tie, and different ways for her to keep the gavel. She added that she was never interested in serving on a technicality, but said she interpreted Wimmer’s 2026 reference to mean she might have more support after that election.

“That's a little bit funny to me,” Pirtle-Guiney said. “Because I was pretty clear with all of my colleagues that I was interested in serving for a second year and continuing the work that I had started, but that I was not interested in serving any more than that.”

Isaak’s strategy to allow the mayor to break the tie over council leadership is one that Smith and other councilors are still considering pursuing, according to Smith’s office. Isaak declined to provide comment to the Mercury when reached by phone on March 6.

Other records show Wimmer acknowledging a genuine political divide between progressive and moderate councilors.

“They’re trying to pick you off, I see,” Wimmer wrote to Councilor Steve Novick on January 7, during City Council deliberations over who to install as the next Council president. “Thanks for being clear and firm.”

Later that afternoon, Wimmer weighed in on a tense discussion councilors of color raised about an entrenched status quo they said leaves them fighting uphill to combat unconscious race and gender inequities.

“I’m outraged that they are saying pro-Elana = racism,” Wimmer wrote to Novick and Councilor Eric Zimmerman, separately. “I’m OFFENDED.”

Novick did not respond. Zimmerman did.

“Yep. We knew it would devolve into that,” Zimmerman wrote.

“Someone should call it out,” Wimmer wrote.

“How,” Zimmerman wrote. “Impossible except for Loretta. Dan and Olivia and I can’t.”

Wimmer then urged Zimmerman to downplay the notion that race impacted councilors’ decision-making.

“Make a distinction between legitimate misgivings and race-based opposition,” Wimmer wrote.

The records show Wimmer sent the same message to Smith, adding, “They are conflating the two and that’s offensive.”

That’s according to a screenshot from Smith’s personal phone that was excluded from the Mercury’s records request, but obtained by another requester and shared with the Mercury. The records suggest Smith did not respond.

In a March 9 text message to the Mercury, Zimmerman said “of course” he communicates with Wimmer.

“I meet with her at least quarterly, she is the head of the Northwest Labor Council,” Zimmerman said. “She’s a great community and good government advocate, and a D4 constituent, who wants Portland to be successful.”

Behind the scenes, Wimmer and others chastised progressive councilors of color over their concerns that racist stereotypes were being deployed to keep Councilor Sameer Kanal from the president role. As the Mercury reported in January, the councilors' assertions weren't unfounded.

During that January 7 meeting, local real estate broker Brian Owendoff was photographed in a group chat with two associates from the Future Portland PAC, Tahlia Giardini and Vikki Payne, using racist, sexist, and homophobic tropes about those elected officials. Owendoff was also in a separate group chat with members of the organization Partnership for Progress, which similarly framed the meeting as one that “devolved into personal attacks and the use of the race card” in a January 12 newsletter.

The morning of January 8, Wimmer shared her frustration in a message to Novick, particularly at the four councilors affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

“Yesterday's meeting left me heartsick and infuriated,” Wimmer wrote. “The egregious breach of decorum in the final hours, impugning motives, race baiting, violating Robert's Rules, and trashing a smart and high-integrity public servant was just too much. Mitch (Green) told me this would not happen. The DSA team is nothing less than the MAGA of the left. I'm just disgusted. Thanks for being a thoughtful, honest, kind, smart servant leader. Your conduct yesterday saved me from utter despair.”

Wimmer’s position within a large labor group, coupled with her frequent communication with councilors suggests her sphere of influence is much greater than that of “an observer.” Records show Wimmer tried to broker a deal with Novick on behalf of Pirtle-Guiney (EPG).

“I need to speak with you asap,” Wimmer wrote to Novick’s city phone the morning of January 8. “I want to follow EPG’s wishes and have you accept the nomination for Council Prez. The VP question is strategically and operationally critical. Pls call.”

“Laurie, no disrespect, but I am limiting my discussion of council internal business today to councilors,” Novick replied.

“Ok. EPG asked me to call,” Wimmer wrote.

Pirtle-Guiney said she had talked to Novick about whether he might be a compromise candidate for president, but didn’t recall asking Wimmer to contact him.

“I certainly don't think it's a bad thing for anybody considering a big step like that, to hear from people who think they would be good at it,” Pirtle-Guiney said. “If Laurie had offered to call him, I'm sure I would have said ‘it doesn't hurt, go right ahead.’”

Novick told the Mercury he did not recall talking with Pirtle-Guiney about it, but said his position was clear that he did not want councilors to elect a Peacock member.

“Nothing that Laurie was going to say was going to influence how I acted in any of that discussion,” Novick said.

Records show that throughout the course of 2025, Wimmer sent messages to councilors’ city-issued devices, but sent a handful of other messages to Pirtle-Guiney, Smith, Zimmerman, and Novick on their personal phones. Novick is seen repeatedly telling Wimmer not to message about city business on his personal phone.

Under Oregon law, elected officials are the custodians of their own records on their personal devices. That means in the absence of a court order, elected officials get to determine which, if any, portions of their private communications to turn over in a request for public records.

While many legal exemptions apply, Oregon records law is historically a law of disclosure, favoring journalists and the public when it comes to seeking information about the public’s business.

“Oregon’s public records and meetings laws establish a simple expectation: that its government will be transparent to her people,” says a 2024 Oregon Department of Justice manual on public records and meetings law.

It is unclear whether councilors chose to include all or just a portion of their chats with Wimmer from their private phones in response to the Mercury's records request.

But other city laws also apply, both to elected officials and to influential parties. The city established lobbying rules in 2005 requiring entities that attempt to influence public officials to report their activities to the public. Registered lobbyists are required to file quarterly reports when they spend at least eight hours or $1,000 on lobbying.

Wimmer’s lobbyist registration lapsed at the beginning of 2026, and she had not renewed her registration with the city at the time of publishing, according to city records. While she was registered in 2025, she reported no lobbying activity after the first quarter that year.

Still, the records show Wimmer weighing in on labor issues—including a police review board’s contract negotiations—putting her thumb on the scale regarding a City Council operations staff unionization effort, and indirectly admonishing councilors she disagreed with.

They also show Wimmer serving as an envoy for the police union, which does not have its own registered lobbyist with the city.

A voicemail recording obtained by the Mercury shows Wimmer holds enough sway that she appears to expect officials to check with her before making decisions, particularly on police-related issues.

On April 28, 2025, Koyama Lane posted a letter to her campaign’s Instagram account from the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) stating its opposition to the Portland Police Association (PPA) joining NOLC. Wimmer took issue with the post, and reached out to Koyama Lane to disinvite her from NOLC’s annual Labor Appreciation Dinner in May.

“This is very awkward to say but with respect, I suggest that you probably plan not to be there after what you did on social media around the PAT letter,” Wimmer said. “I’m not sure that that would be a good idea, and to protect you I am saying this. Maybe there’s a time for us to have a conversation at some point, but right now I'm pretty heartbroken that you did this without a call to me.”

Wimmer said it was not about her, but about her council’s feelings.

“I know we sent you an invitation, but that was before you did that,” Wimmer said. “So, it’s just my suggestion that it wouldn’t be the best possible environment for you to appear.”

The Mercury’s Do This, Do That: Your Top Events for March 9-15

Lindsay Costello — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:30:00 -0700

Grasshopper pie, Irish boxing, and where to watch the Academy Awards.

by Lindsay Costello

This week, Indigo De Souza swings by to make us cry, Pi Day means eight types of pie are up for grabs at Lauretta Jean's (but you better get there early), and I bet you've never seen a chamber opera about a UFO cult! Plus, Portland has a few Academy Awards watch parties on the docket, but if you're more the type to rage-scramble around on Sunday afternoon trying to figure out how to watch the Oscars from home, I've got you: Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, AT&T TV, and FuboTV will stream the show live, some of which offer a free trial. Isn't Do This, Do That helpful?! On to the events!

Monday, March 9 Indigo De Souza If you've ever seen indie rock artist Indigo De Souza perform, you'll know she doesn't shy away from personal topics and heavy emotions, but often dwells in them through her music with confessional songs about toxic relationships and mortality. She might cry on stage, people might cry in the audience, and fans will definitely scream-sing along to songs like the 2018 track "Take Off Ur Pants." Her music often features primal, gravelly vocals and fast-paced guitar riffs, juxtaposing the occasional piano ballad moment with an upbeat danceable tune. De Souza most recently released a collab track called "Serious" with rising pop artist Mothé, who's supporting her on tour. I expect they’ll perform it together live; the song and accompanying video feel like a reminder to listeners as much as the artists themselves to find joy and silliness even in the darkest of times. (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, 8 pm, $39.14-$103.55, more info, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH

Also worth it:

The Bride!, Cinema 21, more info
According to HR Smith's review, Maggie Gyllenhaal's film feels like "riding shotgun in a stolen car—like someone cramming a lifetime of big-movie big-Hollywood big-monster big-gore fandom into 126 minutes."

Tuesday, March 10 Portland Trail Blazers vs Charlotte Hornets

The Charlotte Hornets are like the Trail Blazers' Eastern Conference evil twin. Both teams are hovering around 10th place, barely sneaking into the play-in tournament. But whereas Portland is a team of lovable misfit veterans (re: Jrue Holiday and Jerami Grant) and young guys we're still unsure about (re: everyone else), the Charlotte Hornets, powered by star LaMelo Ball, play what can only be described as “post-basketball.” Ball's been a walking highlight reel since his teen days playing with 30-something Lithuanians, but his stunning assists and step-back threes have always been coupled with baffling mishaps—that is, until recently. The Hornets arrive hot, with one of the best records in the NBA since January 22. (Moda Center, 1 N Center, 7 pm, $23+, more info, all ages) CAMERON CROWELL

Wednesday, March 11 Mundo de las Mujeres

For the third year, Milagro Theatre celebrates playwriting and performance by Latina/e women with its Mundo de las Mujeres festival. For fans of staged readings, Mia Torres directs two—Erlina Ortiz' Las Mujeres on March 11 and Alexis Scheer's Laughs in Spanish on March 18. Andrea Menchaca Hall’s stand-up special Speaking American is the main event on March 21. (Milagro Theatre, 537 SE Stark, various times March 11-21, $5 or pay what you will, more info, all ages) SUZETTE SMITH

Richard Hell

If you're a fair weather Voidoids fan you may not have realized that Richard Hell—who burned the lyrics of "Blank Generation" onto the brains of punks of a certain age—went on to be a respected author of nonfiction and novels. His 2005 work, Godlike, "transposes the notorious romance of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud to the East Village." I'm intrigued, even though that sounds like it has the potential to be pretentious as all get-out. But it was re-released by New York Review of Books last month, so I'm back to the front of the class. (Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside, 7 pm, FREE, more info) SS

Thursday, March 12 Emily Wise: Meet Me at the Mothership

The motto of Emily Wise's artistic output might be "the longer you look, the more you find.” Wise's last two exhibitions at Chefas Projects, Hair of the Banshee and Hands that Hold the Melting Rope, populated neon-hued acrylic compositions with cool girls, Irish banshees, and shadowy flora. Meet Me at the Mothership brings together more of Wise’s lucid dreams in painting form. Inspired by a recent experience in Utah’s desert terrain and envisioning the multivalent mothership as a “cosmological, terrestrial, and corporeal” figure, the show asks an interesting question: What is the maternal quality, exactly? Wise’s women scroll TikTok and witness mythical, light-spilling eggs in pursuit of the truth. (Chefas Projects, 134 SE Taylor Ste 203, Wed-Sat 1-6 pm through Apr 4, FREE, more info, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO

Painting by Emily Wise. COURTESY CHEFAS PROJECTS The Gleaners and I

Agnès Varda's sprightly late-career documentary The Gleaners and I (2000) follows foragers of all forms, from dumpster diggers to oyster scavengers, while drifting into meditations on waste and art. Varda becomes a gleaner in her own right, gathering images and ideas that most wouldn't give a second glance. For her, it’s instinctual; the pathfinder of the French New Wave modeled a life of restless curiosity until her last moment. Her later works express this philosophy most clearly. Read more in this month's Second Run Portland. (Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, 7:30 pm, $10-$12, more info, not rated) LC

Friday, March 13 Pi Day at Lauretta Jean’s

Portland’s premier pie-by-the-slice shop is offering a lineup of eight exclusive flavors from Friday through Sunday in honor of Pi Day. The full list includes tiramisu cannoli pie, cherry cheesecake pie, peanut butter and jelly pie, Mayan chocolate chess pie, calamansi and mango pie, grasshopper pie, honey black sesame pie, and banoffee pie. Those flavors are in addition to Lauretta Jean’s regular menu, which includes classics like tart cherry, salted honey, key lime, and heirloom apple pie. Call ahead to preorder whole pies, but slices are walk-up only—just be warned that the shop expects to sell out each day. (Lauretta Jean’s, 3402 SE Division, March 13-15, more info, all ages) KATHERINE CHEW HAMILTON

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Kells Irish Boxing

Luck of the Irish? Not for these fighters, some of whom will find themselves knocked unceremoniously on their ass during the annual, and very raucous Kells Irish Boxing event! In case you weren’t aware, the Portland Irish Festival is jam-crammed with events starting March 13 and culminating on the 17th (St. Paddy’s day)—most of which involve trying to guzzle endless kegs of green beer in a space the size of a clown car—but the best event for my money is the amateur boxing match, featuring six hours (!) of uppercuts and roundhouses, billed as “Ireland vs. Oregon.” I’m not exactly sure what we did to offend Ireland, but rest assured our Oregon boxers will knock these guys right on their shillelaghs. (Yes, I realize I’m not using the term correctly, which is probably why these Irish folks are so pissed. Well… bring it on, lads and lassies!) (Tom McCall Waterfront Park, 98 SW Naito, 5-11:30 pm, $49.16, more info, 21+) WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY

Saturday, March 14 The Siren Theater Improv Giants

Whether performing or watching, improv is not for the faint of heart. When it doesn’t click, it really doesn’t click. But when it does? Goddamn it’s magical, and can hit heights seldom seen when attending the theater. Some of the best improv I’ve seen in Portland comes from the minds of the Siren Theater Improv Giants, featuring Shelley McLendon, Nicholas Kessler, Tony Marcellino (formerly of the legendary PDX group The Liberators) and Jed Arkley (Whiskey Tango). Alone, each member of this fantastic foursome are hilarious—together they combine to become a veritable Transformer of hilarity—so if you want to increase your chances of witnessing magic? These Giants are an extremely good bet. (Siren Theater, 3913 N Mississippi, 7:30 pm, $10-$20, more info, 14+) WSH

Also worth it:

Born in Flames, 5th Avenue Cinema, more info
Fans of Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin will dig Lizzie Borden’s dystopian docu-fiction, which imagines the fractured aftermath of a revolution that didn’t keep its promises. The director’s guerilla approach blends real news footage with direct-action feminism; don’t blink and you’ll catch Kathryn Bigelow in a small role.

Arts week, Sou'wester, more info
Each year, Seaview's Sou'wester Lodge invites artists to experiment with materials, works-in-progress, and the environment during a week-long residency, culminating in a weekend of studio tours, installations, and performances. The shift toward brighter spring days pairs well with a day trip to engage with the new artworks.

Sunday, March 15 Dies Irae, Desirée

If the words "classical music" don't tend to grab your attention, consider that Third Angle New Music's curatorial flavor trends toward experimental takes on the form. So far, their 40th anniversary concert series has explored the works of minimalist pioneer Steve Reich from inside Hopscotch’s interactive art exhibits, and brought a string quartet and clarinet ensemble to the World Forestry Center. Maria Finkelmeier and Brady Evan Walker’s UFO-laden chamber opera Dies Irae, Desirée is next on the docket, in which a YouTube streamer-turned-cult leader claims to communicate with aliens. Cast members Sarah Tiedemann and William Pyle also play flute and saxophone among other live instrumentalists. (Vault Theater, 350 E Main, Hillsboro, 2 pm, $30-$40, more info, all ages) LC

Red Carpet Awards Watch Party with Ry Bred

Finally, a chance to whip out the actor-pun cocktail names you’ve been saving up all year. That is, should you wish to host your ungrateful friends at a home Oscars watch party. Another option: Get out there and judge the actor-pun cocktail names of any of the fine movie houses throwing their own Academy Awards soirees. Tomorrow Theater will have a pink carpet (!) and hilarious local queen Ry Bred providing commentary for…FOUR HOURS of speeches, play-off music, and celebrity outfits, projected on the theater’s big screen. (Tomorrow Theater, 3530 SE Division, 4 pm, FREE with RSVP, more info, all ages) SS

Also worth it:

Academy Awards watch parties, various locations
A few other red carpet-worthy options this Sunday for your consideration: Cinemagic's party promises prizes for those who guess the award winners, and Poison Waters hosts at Kennedy School.

Shamrock Run, Waterfront Park and a billion closed roads downtown, more info
RIP your Sunday commute. Expect road closures everywhere from SW Naito to NW 26th. But a bunch of green-painted people will be happy.

Looking for even more events happening this week? Head on over to EverOut!

THE TRASH REPORT: Rashes, Wigs, Zendaya's Wedding, and Timothee's Breakfast

Elinor Jones — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 09:50:00 -0700

Welcome to the only gossip column in town.

by Elinor Jones

Hello, hello! Time for another Trash Report. I'm Elinor Jones. The human world—it's a mess. If we don't make fun of it I think we become complacent in it? Or at least apathetic. And I, for one, prefer to be regular pathetic, thank you very much. Let's gossip!

Hail to the Rash

Donald Trump started a war with Iran last week to distract us all from the disgusting new rash he has on his neck. The White House said the rash is being treated, but provided no further information. Believe me when I tell you that I do not want to imagine what is happening underneath all those ill-fitting suits, but with the bruise on his hand and now this new neck thing, you know whatever we're not seeing has got to be very gross.

In addition to growing new scabs, this week Trump fired Kristi Noem from her job as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security after a dismal performance at a Senate committee hearing where she didn't NOT say she was fucking Corey Lewandowski. Trump didn't come right out and fire her, of course. Instead he said he was appointing her to a totally real new post as special envoy to the Shield of the Americas, which is a political way of saying, we didn't kill your career, we simply sent it to live out its days on a farm outside of town. Lots of people gloated about her firing including Meghan McCain, who called out Noem for blowing $200 million on an ad campaign. Okay, legit. Then she tweeted "BYE WIG" to which I say: girl. Leave the hair-shaming to those of us who have never looked like this:

In other news, The Atlantic just published a piece titled "Young Men Aren't the Only Ones Struggling: Women might be having an even harder time." Might be? We "might" be? We miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight be? Wemightbe? Wemightbewemightbewemightbe? Gals, what if we might be having a harder time than men? Have you considered that? Have you thought about how they aren't the only ones struggling? Did you know that we might be struggling also? Did you know?

Gooped and Gagged

Gwyneth Paltrow is auctioning off a bunch of her shit. This is a perfect opportunity... if you have any friends named Gwyneth and want to get them some customized jewelry and you have several hundred or thousand dollars to spend. Of note: The auction includes the famous 1999 pink Ralph Lauren she wore to the Academy Awards when she won for Shakespeare in Love. The current bid is only $1,250 which is downright affordable! Does anyone wanna go in on this with me? We could pass it around like the Stanley Cup, each of us taking a turn to wear it once or twice during the year. Of course, I am sure none of us are the size that Gwyneth Paltrow was when she wore this dress, so we'll have to take it out a bit—maybe put in some ruching?—but it would be such a great conversation starter at the gym.

Speaking of award shows, Noah Wyle just won an Actor Award (f.k.a. SAG) for his work as Dr. Robby on The Pitt and in his speech he talked about the security he felt for carrying his union card all these years he's worked in the business. What a guy. Even though I know he's an actor—like, he got the award for his acting, that's how good of an actor he is, he is not his character—I would let him perform surgery on me, 100 percent, no hesitation. Nicole Kidman has been doing press for her new series Scarpetta and she learned all the organs and how to perform an autopsy for her role as a doctor in that, but I wouldn't trust her over me with a scalpel. This isn't sexism. I don't know, I feel like Noah Wyle could lock in and focus, whereas Nicole Kidman would fully bounce if she got a call from Reese Witherspoon. You know?

Love Is in THE Air, Just Not YOUR Air

Another thing that happened at the Actor Awards: celebrity stylist Law Roach spilled that his iconic client and muse Zendaya has already wed the darling wee Englishman Tom Holland. Everyone now is trying to get eyes on Zendaya's fingers to spy a wedding ring and figure out what we don't know, as if we are owed the details. As someone who loves pop culture and writes about it for money, people need to get a goddamn grip about this. What, are you surprised you didn't get an invite to the wedding? You thought he'd tell you first, because you're friends, because you've watched the "Umbrella" video 500 times? We are lucky to live in the Zendaya era; she's given us a million stunning looks, and yet people have the audacity to demand pictures of the wedding dress too?! God forbid a celebrity couple carry the slightest air of mystery!

Okay I mentioned it so now I have to post it. Internet law.

In other wispy zillennial news, Timmy Chalamet is in hot water because he said that nobody cares about opera or ballet, which is only the second-dumbest thing I learned about him recently. The first-dumbest is that I guess he has a chef on-set with him who cooks him three whole breakfasts every morning and then he decides which one he wants and discards the other two. The fool! Why have one whole when he has the opportunity for the perfect breakfast, which is a few bites of a several different breakfasts? Dude could be eating like he's at brunch with his girlfriends every day on set.

Science Trash

Briefly, is anyone watching this season of Love is Blind? Skip this part if you don't care or don't want spoilers. I'm not all the way caught up, but I just watched the episode where we find out that the soccer bro didn't vote, but if he had he would have voted for Trump, and his vibe suddenly makes way more sense. And THEN we learn that he and his fiancée use the rhythm method for birth control and do not to get pregnant. I don't want them to procreate, but it would be funny.

Speaking of anti-science voodoo, raw milk drinkers on Reddit have been wondering if they can make their raw milk safer by heating it up. Heating up milk is also what happens during "pasteurization," i.e. what makes milk at the store safe to drink and not "raw." But the way they frame it is "will this get rid of toxins?" and that is actually a brilliant idea: call all medicines "a way to eliminate toxins." Because those MAGA people love pills and potions when their purpose is fighting toxins. Can we get the FDA to rebrand the measles as a toxin? Then just call think vaccines "preventative anti-toxins." Wink, wink. You know it will work.

Local Trash

The most popular movie of the weekend was the new Pixar jam, Hoppers, which takes place in a town called Beaverton, a place named as such by the writers, because surely such a foolish name for a city could not exist in real life! Then they were like, lol, whoops.

That's all for now, friends. I'll talk to you later. Daylight saving is a bitch and she fucked up my whole weekend, but it's nice that it will be light after dinner now.

Forwardly,

Good Morning, News: The City's Pothole Crisis, Portland Fire Basketball May Be Delayed, and the US (Most Likely) Bombed an Iranian Girls' School

Wm. Steven Humphrey — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 08:59:00 -0700

by Wm. Steven Humphrey

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND!👋

And also happy daylight saving time to those who celebrate—which is nobody, right? 🙄 In any case, you can expect today's cloudy skies to be turning on and off their drizzle faucets all day, with a high of 53. And for those reading this from higher elevations (as in feet, not weed), you might see a mixture of snow and rain Tuesday, before it warms up later in the week. And now, set your brains forward for a look at today's NEWS.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• A new proposal is set to come before Portland City Council this month to help establish a more permanent solution to the city's pothole crisis. As you undoubtedly recall, the Portland Bureau of Transportation has been suffering a budget crisis for years, leading to crumbling roads and sidewalks and a financial inability to fix them. This time around council will consider a three-pronged attack on the problem, including a potential “transportation utility tax” on residents and businesses, charging fees to utility agencies whose vehicles damage the roads, as well as a possible surcharge on food and retail deliveries (like Door Dash and Amazon). The transportation utility fee—a tax that several other Oregon cities already implement—could raise up to $46.7 million a year. However, even most transpo officials agree that these extra fees would only be a drop in the proverbial bucket.

• Have you been wondering, "what in the ever-loving hell is going on with the Lloyd mall and its beloved ice skating rink?" Last Thursday, March 5, the Portland Design Commission unanimously accepted the Lloyd Mall owners’ Revised Primary Master Plan, thereby pushing the massive project—which would eventually demolish the mall and replace it with mixed-use development—another small step forward. While this vote focused more on boring stuff like zoning codes and isn’t a demolition order, the plan—as it stands now—will eventually lead to the massive tear-down. Here’s an update on the decision from our Joe Streckert.

The Portland Design Commission unanimously accepted the Revised Primary Master Plan for the Lloyd Center Mall, pushing the massive project one small step forward.

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) March 6, 2026 at 12:46 PM

• In sporting news, there could be a substantial delay to the beginning of the season for our new WNBA franchise, the Portland Fire. The WNBA is currently locked in a labor dispute with players, and if a deal is not reached by tomorrow it could seriously delay the team's season opener, and stop the Fire from building a roster. While players are expected to get a substantial raise, WNBA management is refusing to budge on a key request: sharing the total revenue, the same deal that NBA players receive. An agreement has to be made in order for the Fire to start acquiring and trading players, and unless they start immediately, an on-time start to the season is unlikely.

• Calling all gamers: House House, the video game developers who brought you Untitled Goose Game, have a new world for you to explore called Big Walk. And here's where it gets even better—the game’s publishers, Portland studio Panic, are inviting YOU to come play it in their downtown offices for FREE before publication. 👀 While the new game made our culture editor Suzette Smith suuuuuper dizzy, she loved it and wants to play it again. In her full review she breaks down what makes this game so special.

• Our new food editor, Katherine Chew Hamilton, has the deets on a new matcha joint that opened in February, called Mako Matcha Mill. Owners Edison Zeng and Emily Dewey are putting out more straight-forward matcha drinks using tea sourced directly from farmers, which allows them to sell their delicious delights at a much cheaper price point: $4 per drink, which is less expensive than many of the other matcha places in town. Check it out!

Scenes from the 10th annual Lunar New Year Parade in Portland.

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) March 7, 2026 at 8:21 PM

• And if you're looking for a good laugh, maybe you should try... the latest Pixar movie? Our Dom Sinacola reviews the new animated flick Hoppers, about a college student/environmental activist who gets her brain transferred into the CPU of a lifelike robot animal, which he calls "undeniably delightful, adventurous, and arguably the funniest Pixar title in forever." BIG TALK! We better check this one out for ourselves and see!

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• Today in Trump's massive blunders (collect all 3,487): Oil prices are skyrocketing and fueling fears of an energy crisis following Trump and Israel's attacks on Iran and the assassination of its despot leader. Analysts warn of gas prices rising to at least $4 per gallon—prices not seen since Russia began its war against Ukraine. The crisis is hitting Asia particularly hard, as they receive the majority of their imported oil from the Middle East. So far the war has killed an estimated 1,230 people in Iran, 397 in Lebanon, 11 in Israel, and seven American service members. Meanwhile, following the killing of their former dictator, Iran has named his son, Ayahtolla Mojtaba Khamenei as their new supreme leader, who allegedly has close ties to the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard, and... surprise!... is even more of a hard-liner than his father was. (Trump's violent plan for world peace is just getting better and better, isn't it? 🙄)

After campaigning to shrink the size of the government, Trump's administration fired more than 387,000 employees and now needs to hire back to cover significant operational blind spots.

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— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast.bsky.social) March 9, 2026 at 6:26 AM

• In related news, it's looking more and more like the US was responsible for the bombing of an Iranian girls school which killed over 165 people. Experts, as well as a US official, agree that the bombing raid likely included American Tomahawk missiles and that the United States ordered the attack. Video capturing the bombing appears to back up this theory, which directly contradicts Trump's ass-covering claim that Iran was responsible for the deadly explosion.

Video footage shows what appears to be a U.S. Tomahawk missile striking in the vicinity of an elementary school next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval complex, according to eight munitions experts.

[image or embed]
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) March 9, 2026 at 5:30 AM

• The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced today that they have reached a settlement in their antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment. The entertainment company has been accused of leveling threats and retaliation against smaller companies in order to “suffocate the competition.” However, despite the settlement agreement, states are fuming that they didn't agree to the deal, and now there's a strong possibility of even more lawsuits against the company.

• “Improvised explosive devices" were thrown at the home of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani that were designed to "injure, maim or worse," according to NYC's police commissioner. Two suspects in the attack have reportedly been arrested and authorities are currently treating their actions as "ISIS-inspired terrorism." The attack took place during an anti-Islam demonstration and counterprotest on Saturday near the mayor's official residence, and luckily for all, the devices failed to detonate and no one was injured.

• And finally... it's Monday! And this kitten has a special "good morning" greeting for Donald Trump.

@michimay98 🤭 #catsoftiktok #kitten #cat #fypシ゚ ♬ original sound - SpicyBug

Panic Invites Players for a Big Walk in Its Downtown Portland Offices

Suzette Smith — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 06:00:00 -0700

House House’s new friend hang video game made me motion sick, but I'd play it again.

by Suzette Smith

We got a chance to demo the game at the Panic office in downtown Portland, and soon so can you. Starting March 9, Panic is inviting fans to come play it in their studios.

You remember this game’s developers, House House, from their smash hit Untitled Goose Game (2019)—also published by Panic—wherein one plays as a mischievous goose with the power to “HONK” at and prank foolish townsfolk. The two games don’t have much in common in terms of visuals or play experience. Big Walk’s renderings are vibrantly colorful. The puzzles your avatar collaborates on have a playground modernism feel—bright, primary colors and rounded, soft edges—but the world surrounding them mimics idealized nature, with moving grasses, delicate trees, and glorious sunsets.

All open world games are inevitably compared to Nintendo’s 2017 groundbreaking hit The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but a similar feeling of awe was palpable when we exited the starting area and happened upon the valley we were about to explore. We did so at night, but were carrying pink light-up balls that lent the green grasses magical two-toned hues.

We started calling these balls with nubs "nubbins," but you may come up with your own word.
HOUSE HOUSE

Still, there’s mischief and humor present in the game. You’re not exactly pranking your friends (you could!), but you can pick up their avatars and carry them on your shoulders or dropkick them. The blobby little figures look like bi-ped ants walking upright, with their tri-section bodies and rounded noses that move and expand every time a player speaks.

Talking is a major part of Big Walk. And the game’s proximity chat may be its defining feature. When your avatar walks away from the others, your voice becomes quieter and vice versa. This means when you’re lost, you can really get lost.

“It feels so awesome to find people again,” said Cabel Sasser, Panic co-founder and one of the hosts of our demo session. Finding a lost teammate was an experience I provided my demo-mates over and over again, as I evidenced my tendency to wander off. It was difficult not to want to simply tromp off and explore the valley—described by Panic as an island, though we only saw one small area of it.

Sasser estimated that the game contains at least ten to 15 hours of puzzles for groups of friends to unravel. Once that’s finished there isn’t a plan to add more islands or downloadable challenges. The experience is meant to be finite, which one might identify as something most Panic games have in common. Goose Game, Firewatch, Herdling—every Panic game I’ve played could be finished in about a weekend.

It seems a little unlikely a group of friends could make plans to hang out for ten hours straight, so the idea seems to be that Big Walk should be played in a few sessions. Only the game’s host needs to remain the same from play to play, unless the group wants to start over. New players can join existing playthroughs, and Big Walk could even serve as a meet-up spot for those who want to chat and also do something with their hands.

The challenges my team unraveled required all of us working together (think ropes course, but we never actually did a ropes course). Sasser said the obstacles scale with the number of players, and Big Walk can accommodate groups of anywhere from two to 12. Idea alert: How do we get the City Council to play?

Panic plans to offer in-studio Big Walk sessions until the game is released.
Courtesy of PANIC

Asked about the inevitability of Big Walk being used for team building endeavors, Sasser mused: “The goal was not additional, increased capitalism, but instead having quality time with your friends.” He then added, “I’ve joked about wanting to do [remote] meetings in Big Walk. I feel like that would be better in many ways—maybe harder to share a file, but more entertaining.” If anything, participants would have to stay engaged. An avatar abandoned falls asleep—as we found out when I left to walk around the office looking for Dramamine.

The first person view of my avatar—no defined names given the blobs just yet, Panic hopes players will create lots of fun terms—was probably the main thing that made me dizzy. It was potentially my own fault for jerking my vision around in circles, as I tried to see everything. Panic’s staff expanded my frame of view, and it helped immensely. It also helps to focus on the dot at the center of your screen, which players use to select. Further advice: Play in a lit space. Sit back from the screen. Motion seems a little smoother with keyboard and mouse.

Panic plans to offer in-studio Big Walk sessions right up until the game finally hits computer and Playstation platforms, and since the release date has yet to be announced, that could be for some time.

Grab three friends—or people you at least sort of know—and sign up to play Big Walk at bigwalk.game and forms.panic.com/big-walk-preview.

Last Chance: Enjoy the Delicious Fun of the Mercury's SANDWICH WEEK! 🥪

Mercury Promotions — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 10:05:00 -0700

A week of creative, one-of-a-kind sammies from Portland's best sandwich artists—but hurry... it ends today, Sunday March 8!

by Mercury Promotions

IT'S A FACT: Sandwiches are the best. You can eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And thankfully, it's time to celebrate this feat of ingenuity with the Portland Mercury's Sandwich Week! (Big thanks and "what’s up!" to our pals at Jim Beam and Travel Portland for their help.) But you better hurry, because today Sunday March 8, is the last day for Sandwich Week, in which Portlanders will be feasting on delectable, original sandwich creations built by 88 (!?!) of the city’s fabulous chefs... and if that's not enough, each of those sammies is only $10! Are you kidding me? NO, WE ARE NOT!

Did you know that the Mercury's Sandwich Week is not only a perfect excuse to shove a delicious sandy (or 10... or 20) into your mouth, but it's also a great way to support and introduce yourselves to local restaurants who might not be on your radar. AND it also helps the Mercury continue the top-notch investigative reporting and arts/entertainment coverage you rely on every day. SO THANK YOU FOR THAT!

Check out pics and descriptions of this year's one-of-a-kind sandwich creations, and plot your sandwich-filled path to glory with our handy-dandy Sandwich Week map—but before you start planning the most delicious week of your life, please keep a few things in mind:

TIP!
And please, don't be stingy! Sandwich Week takes a ton of work—especially from Portland's beloved servers, cooks, and bartenders! Let 'em know you appreciate it. With money.

BRANCH OUT!
Each Sandwich Week location has more than just fantastic sandwiches—you'll also find excellent drinks and sides! Could you survive this week eating nothing but sandwiches? Uh... probably. But you'd miss out on other awesome stuff!

RELAX!
Due to its official status as The Most Beloved Event on Planet Earth™, Sandwich Week can get a little hectic. There will be lines—so if a place is too busy, just come back the next day, or hit another Sandwich Week spot!

#MERCURYSANDWICHWEEK
The Mercury's got you covered with Sandwich Week updates, reviews, and tips on Instagram as well as Bluesky (just search the #Mercurysandwichweek hashtag for loads of up-to-the-second info). And make sure you're signed up for Portland Mercury newsletters to stay up to date on ALL the news and events in town.

WE ADORE YOU!
Thank you so much for partaking and enjoying the Mercury's food weeks and supporting small local businesses—especially those who may not get the attention they deserve!

And, as always, if you appreciate the Mercury's daily efforts to keep you informed and entertained, please consider dropping a small contribution so we can keep it going!

Don't miss the delicious fun of the PORTLAND MERCURY'S SANDWICH WEEK: Ending today Sunday March 8! Your mouth never had so much fun!

YOUR SUNDAY READING LIST: Preschool for All Theory Debunked, the Fate of Lloyd Mall, and Who Wants a "Butter Hole"?

Wm. Steven Humphrey — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 07:30:00 -0700

by Wm. Steven Humphrey

GOOD MORNING, SUNDAY! It's the perfect time to catch up on some of the great reporting and stories the Mercury churned out this week! (PRO TIP: If you despise being "the last to know," then be one of the first to know by signing up for Mercury newsletters! All the latest stories shipped directly to your email's in-box... and then... YOUR HEAD.)

• New Preschool for All Data Challenges Idea That Wealthy People Are Fleeing County

Skeptics have suggested the universal preschool tax was driving high-income earners out of Multnomah County. The latest data doesn’t support that notion.

Taylor Griggs

• Initiative to Divert Clean Energy Funds to Cops Moves Ahead Under Constrained Timeline

The future of the effort to tap PCEF for police hiring remains unclear, as time runs out for petitioners to collect signatures for the initiative so it can be on November's ballot. People on both sides of the issue celebrated the judge's decision.

Taylor Griggs

• A Bakery Specializing in Viral Korean Salt Bread Is Coming Very Soon

Hailed by many as the next great competitor to the croissant, salt bread consists of a simple yeasted dough wrapped around a log of butter. As it bakes, the butter melts, leaving behind what many call a “butter hole” as the butter creates a crispy, glossy fried bottom.

Ponto

• Portland Design Commission Accepts Master Plan for the Lloyd Center Mall

On March 5, the Portland Design Commission unanimously accepted the Lloyd Mall owners’ Revised Primary Master Plan, pushing the massive project one small step forward. This isn’t a demolition order, but the plan will eventually lead there. Here’s an update on the decision.

URG and ZGF Architects

• The Black Byline

In this edition, Donovan Scribes criticizes the Portland police union for trying to divert Clean Energy Fund money to hire more police. It also shouldn't escape notice, Scribes writes, that this cynical move is the latest in a line of vengeful attempts to dismantle the work of the city's first Black woman council member, Jo Ann Hardesty.

Rob Dobi

• Bruce Campbell on Death, Dying, and the Evil Dead

If you haven’t heard about Bruce Campbell’s (Evil Dead, Burn Notice) latest film, it’s likely because he’s been working to distribute it himself. The Evil Dead star wrote, directed, and stars in Ernie & Emma, a thoughtful, heartwarming story about a man on a quest through grief who finds more than a few laughs along the way. Campbell had planned a summer of screenings and fan conventions to promote the film. Instead, he’s also had to share difficult news with fans: a diagnosis of treatable but incurable cancer.

Eastmoor Media

• Should Portland Try to Save Lloyd Center Mall?

This might be the last year for Lloyd Center Mall. There’s a plan for what’s next, but a community that’s grown in the mall isn’t happy with it or the process of deciding the building’s future.

Suzette Smith

• Legislators Temporarily Cut Data Centers From Oregon Tax Break Bill

Companies building data centers in Oregon already have a pretty good deal—and new economic development legislation pushed by Gov. Tina Kotek was poised to make that deal even better before an intervention of a legislative subcommittee this week.

Getty Images

• Second Run Portland

This month's Second Run Portland answers an unexpected question: What film should you see if you're really into Jules Verne? How about Octavia Butler, or Lidia Yuknavitch, or ghost stories? If you've gathered that this month's repertory film column is themed around literature, you are CORRECT, dear reader.

Criterion Collection

• Mercury Music Picks

Is Portland an international music hub these days? The Mercury thinks so! This week's Mercury Music Picks features Montreal Madman Bloodshot Bill and artists from all over the globe pulling up for Portland Jazz Festival.

Todd Weaver

• Maggie Gyllenhaal's New Frankenstein-Inspired Film Doesn’t Always Make Sense, but It’s a Helluva Movie!

Director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new Frankenstein-inspired film doesn’t always make sense, but it’s a helluva movie! There are approximately one million James Whale references, and we got every single one of them. Peter Sarsgaard and Penélope Cruz play a detective team, and he’s the Gal Friday. This movie has everything, and HR Smith made sure to note it.

Warner Bros. Pictures

• Savage Love

It's another edition of Savage Love "Quickies" in which Dan answers a multitude of sexual quandaries lickety-split. Including: Questionable circumcisions, X-rated Instagram, and (oh, hello) meet your brand new AI boyfriend!

Joe Newton

WOW, THAT IS A LOT OF GOOD READIN'. I hope you didn't have any other plans this weekend! Dig in, and remember: Producing all this hard work costs moolah—so please consider contributing to the Mercury to keep it all coming! Thanks!

Pixar Underdog Hoppers Is Undeniably Delightful

Dom Sinacola — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 17:30:00 -0800

We are aware we could have said furever. by Dom Sinacola

In Hoppers—the latest Pixar flick, directed by We Bare Bears creator Daniel Chong—under-enrolled college student and over-enthusiastic environmental activist Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) stumbles upon her professor’s (Kathy Najimi) secret invention, which can transfer human brains into the CPU of a lifelike robot animal.

“Like Avatar,” Mabel remarks, immediately jumping into the machine.

Disguised as a beaver, Mabel infiltrates the animal kingdom, and finds herself now able to communicate with all kinds of fauna (voiced by a cadre of comedians and, yes, Meryl Streep).

Mabel must convince local wildlife to return to the glade behind her beloved grandma’s house before it’s bulldozed to make way for Mayor Jerry’s (Jon Hamm) new highway.

Considering the almighty ecosystem of Disney animated films, Hoppers is lower on the Pixar food chain than this year’s alpha Toy Story 5—an upcoming entry in the franchise contractually obligating Tim Allen and Tom Hanks to “spend time together” once every half-decade until they die. And even after they die?

Hoppers confronts the idea of legacy more than any Toy Story ever could—even as those movies guarantee Allen and Hanks a kind of immortality via Disney functionally owning their likenesses in perpetuity. This feature asks: How do you want to leave the world when you go?

Grim thoughts for eight-year-olds to manage, I know, but Hoppers is far from morbid. It's undeniably delightful, adventurous, and arguably the funniest Pixar title in forever. It’s a lovely kids’ movie about what it means to respect the planet—to feel empathy for all living things—even when adults won’t.

Hoppers opens Fri March 6 in wide release, 104 minutes, PG

At Mako Matcha Mill, Tea Leaves Are Pulverized Right Before Your Eyes

Katherine Chew Hamilton — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:00:00 -0800

This is the cafe for folks who like their matcha as matcha-y as possible. But don't miss the duck shit oolong.

by Katherine Chew Hamilton

It seems like matcha is in everything these days, from tiramisu to soft serve to overnight oats (looking at you, NYT Cooking). But what about straight-up matcha for matcha’s sake? Enter Mako Matcha Mill, where matcha itself is the focus—not the cloud foams, fruit flavors, or swirls of soft serve that often accompany it.

Mako Matcha Mill opened in mid-February at 414 SW 13th Avenue in the former Cacao space. Owners Edison Zeng and Emily Dewey source their tea directly from farmers, and because they're not relying on middlemen, they can offer most drinks for around $4, a much lower price point than other cafes. They’re also involved in the tea process at multiple stages, from visiting farms in Japan to milling to brewing—and they want to let the product shine.

‘We want to represent their tea in a good light, in the way it’s supposed to be consumed,” says Zeng. “If we’re mixing it with too many things like strawberry syrup, then that becomes the star of the show, and that’s not what we’re about.”

The menu is short and sweet: matcha served with or without milk, hojicha lattes, espresso drinks, and a handful of non-matcha teas. (Among the non-matcha teas is the prized duck shit oolong, which according to some legends, was intentionally mislabeled by tea farmers to ward off potential thieves. Contrary to the name, it’s honey-like, toasty, and delicious.) Everything comes unsweetened by default, though simple syrup is available upon request.

Of course, it’s not just straight-up matcha and no fun—current add-on options include housemade ube syrup, cherry purée, jasmine syrup, and cold foam—but it’s a much shorter list of flavors than you’ll find at many other matcha cafes, where fruity accompaniments might include banana pudding, strawberry, blueberry-lavender, and mango. The food lineup consists of egg salad sandos and onigiri from upstairs neighbor Masu Sushi, plus wagashi from Gena Renaud of Yume Confections.

Soft serve ice cream is expected to debut in the next few days; so far, they’re playing with ideas like offering ice cream at different tea concentrations from 30% to 90%, flavoring their ice cream with unique combos like sweet corn and condensed milk, or going for the much-requested strawberry-matcha flavor.

“This is literally just us having fun, doing drinks that I want, experimenting with flavors. This is just an extension of myself,” says Zeng.

Edison Zeng and Emily Dewey harvest their first batch of Oregon-grown tencha.

Zeng and Dewey’s involvement with the tea process starts with tea farming. Along with visiting tea farms in Japan, they also worked with Salem’s Minto Island Tea Company to grow an experimental batch of tencha, the shade-grown tea leaves that are milled to make matcha, right here in Oregon. They harvested the tencha in the spring of 2025 and milled it into matcha using their custom-built, in-house mill just a couple weeks ago. Dewey and Zeng believe it’s the first time that tencha has been successfully grown and milled in the United States—if it’s not the first, it’s definitely one of the first. Their harvest yielded about five pounds of tea; it’ll soon be packaged into little red white and blue tins with bald eagles on them. Some will be put up for auction, with proceeds donated to charity.

That granite mill in the store, spinning hypnotically behind the bar, is mostly for demonstration purposes. It can only grind about 15 grams per hour, Zeng says, which is only enough to make a few drinks (Mako handles its larger-scale milling off-site). Asked about their future plans for growing and milling matcha in Oregon, Zeng and Dewey are tight-lipped—apparently there are a lot of trade secrets in this industry. But the matcha here is extremely affordable and very good, and judging by the long lines here on the weekend, that particular secret is already out of the bag.

Theater Review: A Mirror Fractures, Like a Kaleidoscope

John Rudoff — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 12:30:00 -0800

The questions Sam Holcroft poses about making art under authoritarianism are certainly timely.

by John Rudoff

That’s a big lift, but this is a big play.

The audience barely knows when the play begins. We are guests at a wedding, but the event feels fraught, covert, and dangerous. Bride Mei (Kushi Beauchamp) and groom Adem (Jonathan Thompson) appear, but just as quickly vanish.

Leif Norby as Čelik. Photo by John Rudoff

The scene shifts and Adem is being interrogated by government functionary Čelik (Leif Norby), whose charge is to vet the work of playwrights and determine if they align with the interests of the ruling regime. Adem is a humble former soldier and mechanic turned playwright. Mei too is a former soldier and now the assistant to Celik.

As Adem goes from nervous to terrified, over the course of the interrogation, his interrogator begins to show gradual curiosity toward him. Norby’s skilled portrayal leads us to wonder what motives lay beneath Čelik’s actions.

Čelik demands Adem write uplifting propaganda for the benefit of the audience. “What are they there for?” the interrogator asks. “To be reminded of the petty imperfections of their everyday lives? Or—to be transported, moved, entertained—and in the end, elevated. Inspired to look at their own lives in
a new light.”

Bringing in Bax (Joshua Weinstein), a playwright in the regime’s good graces, Čelik proposes that they will teach Adem to write a play properly. Bax has just written a thrilling and uplifting work about a recent military engagement, and the four of them begin to perform the script—which involves Mei acting out a full manual of arms with an umbrella.

Left to right: Leif Norby, Jonathan Thompson, Joshua Weinstein, and Kushi Beauchamp in A Mirror. John Rudoff Left to right: Leif Norby, Jonathan Thompson, Joshua Weinstein, and Kushi Beauchamp in A Mirror. John Rudoff

It turns out that the retelling describes a battle Adem actually fought in, and his truthful remembrances soon collide with Bax’s agitprop. Bax’s play has heroism, noble death, and even a national anthem, but Adem remembers the obscene, gruesome reality of war.

Čelik replies to Adem’s objections, saying “we’re trying to push you beyond the surface details, to something deeper.” The irony, of course, is that they’re actually trying to keep Adem’s narrative in line with the government’s.

Leif Norby interrogates Jonathan Thompson in A Mirror. Photo by John Rudoff

Much of the journey of Holcroft’s play exists in the volley between Čelik and Adem. The audience follows it back and forth. Is trying to dig below the surface an artist’s self-indulgence or his job? Is the surface all there actually is?

A Mirror asks how we look for the truth of a work of art—in this case a play. Do we compare it to reality or try to evaluate it in other ways? How much cooperation is possible between an artist and outside opinions before the work loses moral or artistic authority? Here in the post-truth United States, these conflicts are genuine. The play, though not at all easy, is highly recommended.

Third Rail Repertory presents A Mirror at CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh, through Sun March 15, $7-$60.50, more info, 16+

Update: Portland Design Commission Accepts Master Plan for the Lloyd Center Mall

Joe Streckert — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:50:00 -0800

People talked about the mall as a public asset to the community… the trick is that it’s a privately owned and operated building, and it has an outsized negative effect on the outside of it. by Joe Streckert

On March 5, the Portland Design Commission unanimously accepted the Revised Primary Master Plan for the Lloyd Center Mall, pushing the massive project one small step forward.

The commission's approval is defined by the city’s zoning code and limited to matters like infrastructure capacity for future development and transportation. They weren't deciding building demolition, or approving what buildings will be developed.

The report from Portland Permitting and Development (PPD) focused on issues like whether certain thoroughfares within the development area would have fire access and ADA requirements for frontages and crossings. Another major issue was how to maintain sewer connections while demolishing the mall.

More: Should Portland Try to Save Lloyd Center Mall?

“A mind numbing amount of thought has gone into this on the part of the PPD, our bureaus, and the applicant,” said Design Commission member Brian McCarter, praising how much work had gone into the plan. McCarter read written public statements in support of the plan, like one calling the transformation of the area “from a less than penetrable megablock to an area with permeability.” Another praised the space as having the potential for thousands of new housing units.

Member Joe Swank expressed some skepticism about the plan’s ability to actually bring in retail, tourism, and entertainment. “My real concern is that there’s no real catalyst for anything associated with this,” he said. Swank acknowledged plans to build a music venue, but also said that the master plan did not necessarily lead to a robust commercial district in the area.

Commission member Sarah Vaz spoke to “how much Portland needs affordable and accessible public space,” and called Lloyd Center an important “third place,” i.e., a place to go besides one’s home or work. “People talked about the mall as a public asset to the community… the trick is that it’s a privately owned and operated building, and it has an outsized negative effect on the outside of it.” Vaz called the exterior of the mall “unfriendly and unsafe,” and said that the Master Plan “will vastly improve the neighborhood,” which she said was in need of housing.

“There is a lot of work that goes into this that, unfortunately, the regular community member does not see until later in the process,” said member Tina Bue. “It will create open spaces and neighborhood extensions,” she said. “I believe that Portlanders will create something new. It might not be in this particular space, but it will be something.”

Chair of the Design Commission Chandra Robinson noted, after remarks, that the Design Commission doesn’t approve what buildings go where. They decide whether a plan meets certain criteria.

Before a final vote Swank expressed skepticism once more. “There are multiple avenues for people to make their voices heard,” he said. “I do have concerns over the future of the master plan… This is a 30-plus-acre site, and it might just be vacant for years.”

Once the Design Commission’s appeals process is entirely completed, the development team could apply for additional land use reviews or building permits that would apply to specific parts of the relevant area. Those applications could come in over a series of years as individual parts of the Master Plan area are developed. Demolishing Lloyd Center Mall would require a separate demolition permit which has not yet been filed.

The Lloyd Center

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:47:00 -0800

by Anonymous

Does the plan to tear down the Lloyd Center seriously include building a million square feet of office space? Is there not enough vacant office space in this city already? Do we think the internet is a fad and people will soon be clamoring to return to cubicles? Or is this a prank of some sort? Because this can't honestly be the plan

The Best Bang for Your Buck Events in Portland This Weekend: Mar 6–8, 2026

EverOut Staff — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:10:00 -0800

Portland Small Press & Art Book Fair, Lunar New Year Dragon Dance and Celebration, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $20

by EverOut Staff

Ready for the time jump that is spring forward this Sunday? Before Monday's rough wake up call, spend time at weekend events from the Portland Small Press & Art Book Fair to Cargo's Global Day of Unplugging Portland Style and from the 10th Annual Lunar New Year Dragon Dance and Celebration to the Portland Mercury's Sandwich Week. For more ideas, check out our top picks of the week.

FRIDAY COMEDY

Dead Comics Society
After the closure of Rogue’s Eastside Pub last fall (the entire brewery abruptly and permanently ceased operations in December), the monthly Dead Comics Society stand-up showcase, which has been a Portland mainstay since 2017, has been left without a home. Luckily for the local comedy scene and hungry audiences, Framework Studio has stepped in to accommodate as hosts Chase Brockett and Gina Marie Christopher bring in some of Portland’s top talent for a night of drinks and laughs. The March edition features Shain Brenden, Andy Iwancio, Dan Weber, Ameerah Sanders, and Undisputable Genius of Comedy Nariko Ott, who will lend his hosting skills to the Mercury’s annual comedy show at Revolution Hall later this month. Long live Dead Comics Society! BRI BREY
(Framework Studio, Hosford-Abernethy, $15 in advance/$20 at the door)