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Posted inLove/Sex 2025 ❤️🍆🍑

Reading the Waves Fucks

Lidia Yuknavitch’s newest nonfiction celebrates the body, in all its slippery, squishy glory.
Avatar photo Emma Pattee

[Read all of the articles in our Love/Sex issue HERE! Looking for a print copy? Look at this handy-dandy map!—eds.] The writer Garth Greenwell once wrote about attending a lecture at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and hearing a writer say that an ideal sex scene would be a single sentence “they sat down on the sofa…” […]

Posted inLove/Sex 2025 ❤️🍆🍑

Food: Horny vs Not Horny

The ultimate list of horny and un-horny things to eat—and where to find them locally!
Avatar photo Andrea Damewood

[Read all of the articles in our Love/Sex issue HERE! Looking for a print copy? Look at this handy-dandy map!—eds.] Horniness (horny) is like Newton’s Third Law of Motion (not horny): For every thing that’s horny, there’s an equal and opposite thing that isn’t.  Food is not my kink—particularly after my fateful attendance at the 2006 […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Hong Kong Action Star Donnie Yen Seeks Justice (and a Fight Every 25-30 Minutes) in The Prosecutor

Cop-lawyers, brutal brawls, can’t lose.
Avatar photo Dom Sinacola

With an almost mathematical precision to its pulpiness, The Prosecutor, the latest action-thriller from Hong Kong superstar Donnie Yen, doles out a brutal fight scene every 25 to 30 minutes. Across two brisk hours, violence shifts proportionately between bouts of athletic knuckling, street brawls, shoot-outs, car chases, foot chases, impalings, and pummelings—all spaced out evenly, each […]

Posted inFood and Drink

Portland Steakhouses, What’s the Secret?

In the chaos of Portland’s restaurant scene, where foodies chase the hottest dining trends, the long-standing steakhouses endure.
Avatar photo Andrea Damewood

Settling into a plush booth at Sayler’s Old Country Kitchen, I was snacking on the little veggie spread, of carrots and mini corn, that has come with every dinner there since time immemorial, when I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation at the next table over. It was a father and his grown daughter telling the […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

Profile Theatre’s Samsara Is a Comedy About Reproductive Imperialism and Desire

Celebrated playwright Lauren Yee uses cycles of infertility and surrogacy to touch on something powerful and eternal.
Avatar photo John Rudoff

If you’ve known someone caught in the degrading grind of infertility—whether in adoption, in vitro fertilization (IVF), or surrogacy—you’ll immediately recognize the steaming locomotive of baby fever that propels the characters in Samsara forward. For its 2024-25 season, Profile Theatre is focusing on the works of celebrated playwright Lauren Yee (Cambodian Rock Band, The Great […]

Posted inNews

Mayor Wilson’s Shelter Plans Are Both Ambitious and Ambiguous

Staring down a ballooning homeless population and growing death toll, Portland mayor eyes 1,500 new shelter beds. Some councilors question the logistics and strategy.
Avatar photo Courtney Vaughn

Corrections: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the status of a Temporary Alternative Shelter Site in North Portland, and initially included a financial figure for city spending given during a public meeting that has since been updated to more accurately reflect city expenditures on campsite removals.  Portland Mayor Keith Wilson made homelessness the […]

Posted inThe Trash Report

THE TRASH REPORT: VP Vance? More Like GP Vance, as in Garbage Pail Vance

Dig deep into this week’s can of garbage-y gosssip!
Avatar photo Elinor Jones

Hi everybody, and welcome to another roundup of news and gossip and, most importantly, TRASH. Have you checked the weather forecast lately? Trash shows no sign of letting up for the foreseeable future. In fact if I wrote a song about the trash forecast, it would be called “Lightning Trashes.” If I were to be […]

Posted inGood Morning, News!

Good Morning, News: Clackamas County’s Right-Wing Newspaper, Chinese AI App Causes Wall Street Panic, and Welcome to Wiener Week!

Avatar photo Wm. Steven Humphrey

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 […]

Posted inPhoto

PHOTO ESSAY: Best in Bow-Wow-Wow

The Rose City Classic dog show brings out the best in poochies—and their owners.
Avatar photo Corbin Smith

A place: The Portland Exposition Center in Vanport, on Saturday, January 18. There are dogs everywhere, every kind you can possibly imagine: Bernese Mountain Dog. Shiba Inu. Whippets. Honest to god, straight from the catalog Dalmatians. A small baby beagle, ambling around the show floor. Chao Chaos. Poodles, poodles, poodles, everywhere. Big dogs. Fluffy dogs. […]

Posted inTheater & Performance

A Streetcar Named Desire at Imago Warms up as It Goes

Tennessee Williams’ tragedy foretells the doom of living in a dream.
Avatar photo Suzette Smith

There’s nothing like a hot and steamy play, set in a late 1940s New Orleans summer, when it’s actually below freezing outside. Stuck under all your layers and sweating in your own right, you might find yourself transported into Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Within the bright and versatile set design of Imago Theatre, […]

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