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c3Category — Arts & Culture
Posted inFood Issue 2025

Process Over Product

Artist Meech Boakye on decay, labor, and food as a gift.
Avatar photo Lindsay Costello

Meech Boakye’s lush, organic, and often edible artworks find their footing in floral, fungal, and microbial relationships. The Portland-based artist, originally from Winnipeg, views these relationships as “armatures for learning how to be in a community.” This leads them to share everything from abundant “digital gardens” and recipes for nettle rennet and fig sap cheese […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Happyness (The Wrecking Ball) 

Imago’s absurdist production wrestles with the common question: Do I need to buy a gun?
Avatar photo John Rudoff

Many themes in Happyness (The Wrecking Ball) can be found just outside its performance hall doors. Sidewalk-blocking tents, hundred-dollar dinners, visible homelessness, and blooming high-rise luxury condominiums are all part of the backdrop for playwright Carol Triffle’s engaging new work, currently being staged at the venue she and Jerry Mouawad co-founded, Imago Theatre.  Happyness is […]

Posted inHear In Portland

Hear In Portland: Bye Bye Rontoms Sunday Sessions, We’ll Miss You!

Night Heron’s new record offers the calm of Escapism, milk, and grapes.
Avatar photo Jenni Moore

If you’re a hardcore blues fan (or have recently had your love of blues music invigorated by Ryan Coogler’s new horror flick Sinners), you should check out the Waterfront Blues Festival’s lineup. The fest was recently augmented with artists including Oregon-based singer-songwriters including LaRhonda Steele and Ronnie Wright, Tahirah Memory and Arietta Ward, along with […]

Posted inMercury Music Picks

Mercury Music Picks: Outsider Portland Album Releases and Berlin DJs

Plus the next gen. of nu-metal and Portland music news!
Avatar photo Nolan Parker

As I’m writing this, I’m still buzzing after seeing Lambrini Girls at Mississippi Studios on Sunday. Their politics are abolitionist, their energy was off the charts, and they cajoled concert goers into building a human pyramid with ten people that the rest of the audience then started a circle pit around. It was one of […]

Posted inEverOut

The Top 39 Events in Portland This Week: May 19–25, 2025

Outlaw Music Festival, Jack White, and More
Avatar photo EverOut Staff

Take stock of this week’s top events below, with picks from the Outlaw Music Festival: Willie Nelson & Family, Bob Dylan, and More to Jack White’s No Name Tour and from the kickoff of the 2025 Portland Rose Festival to the Cascadia Drag Festival. MONDAY LIVE MUSIC Diana KrallDiana Krall will show off her penchant […]

Posted inMusic

The Portland Mercury’s Back on Spotify, Baby!

This is huge for the community, trust us. 
Avatar photo Nolan Parker

Well well well, what do we have here? Why, it’s the relaunched Portland Mercury Spotify account of course!  We’re dropping three heater playlists on you today with many more coming down the pipe in the weeks/months/years to come! These highly curated playlists have been pulled together by real Portland humans who care deeply about your […]

Posted inThe Trash Report

THE TRASH REPORT: The Mega-Wealthy are Forming Groups and I, For One, Am Ready to Party

Line up for this week’s buffet of gossip-y garbage!
Avatar photo Elinor Jones

Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Trash Report! I’m Elinor Jones. Some have said that this column reads like a drunk girl in a bathroom bar whisper-yelling to a girl she just met about a mutual enemy who’s not there, and to that I say: good, this is exactly what I’m going for. Now […]

Posted inMusic

Photo Review: Alien Boy vs. Grails

Two rad Portland bands, one night… Choose your fighter! 
Avatar photo Nolan Parker

Whose idea was it to hold release shows for Alien Boy and Grails on the same night, at different venues a mile apart? I’d like to speak to your manager, please! On May 9, Alien Boy unveiled their incredibly fun, emotionally vast You Wanna Fade? at Polaris Hall with LA’s Phony, and Conspire doing their […]

Posted inEverOut

The Best Bang for Your Buck Events in Portland This Weekend: May 16–18, 2025

Mt. Tabor Art Walk, Portland Mercury’s Highball, and More Cheap & Easy Events Under $15
Avatar photo EverOut Staff

Pinching pennies this month? We got you! There’s still plenty to do this weekend on the cheap, from The Portland Mercury’s Highball to the Workers for Shoofly Bake Sale and from Sandler in the Park to the Mt. Tabor Art Walk. For more suggestions, check out our top event picks of the week. FRIDAY FILM […]

Posted inGood Morning, News!

Good Morning, News: Schmidt Show to Become Podcast, Vision Zero Double Down, and Kristi Noem Wants to Make a Hunger Games?

Avatar photo 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.  Good Morning, Portland: We’re looking at some classic Portland weather for the weekend: Clouds and rain. Temperature highs in the low 60s and mid-40 degrees at night. Sounds like a great […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Pavements Is Not Just A Pavement Movie, It’s All Pavement Movies

Biopic, doc, concert, museum, musical—Alex Ross Perry’s documentary contains five views of the ’90s rock band winding around one another.
Avatar photo Dom Sinacola

Pavement has always been a band of uneven proportions. Forever on the precipice of the big time, the group never appeared to try hard enough, to want to be understood enough, and their creative output—off-kilter indie rock that sounded both revolutionary and unintentional—was always a little too much. They helped define a decade of independent […]

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