Tackling Miranda July's debut novel, performance art pigs, and abstract prints, we weren't intimidated by weirdness in the Mercury's arts section this week. Here are our field reports from our strange journeys into the unknown:

Victoria Haven: Jenna Lechner took on Victoria Haven's latest work, Subtitles, up now at PDX Contemporary Art, and points out that while it might seem opaque at first, Haven's long career as a Pacific Northwest artist gives it necessary context, in a review that covers Lawrence Weiner, a chainsaw artist named "Bear in a Box," and Gore-Tex, among other things:

Often, there are more handmade marks in Haven's work. In the case of Subtitles, the pieces look like digital images, but are actually prints made using laser-etched woodblocks. The words come in pairs—"hire / oracle," "toot / vortex," "omen / nope"—and line the wall, stacked above, below, and, to the left and to the right of one another. The words were plucked from Haven's personal text messages, and paired using an algorithm designed by an artist friend. The project was also shown in New York as a projection, where the words "continuously rotated in random order." From that show, some of the words were made into stills, and those freeze-frames are on display at PDX Contemporary.

New theater: I know you're already so ready to dive into Fertile Ground's new and thrilling theatrical offerings, right? I thought so. This is review for most of you, but just in case, I wrote a handy preview of a mere handful of some intriguing new work you can expect to see over the next two weeks. See you in the audience!

Miranda July: Meanwhile, Suzette Smith read Miranda July's first novel, The First Bad Man, and reports that July's tendencies towards all things kooky and oddly emotionally resonant, and her particular brand of SoCal Gothic are alive and well in its pages. Per Suzette's review, it sounds like a raw, strange book that will tell you raw, strange things about yourself:

I read The First Bad Man in one four-hour sitting. I read through the all-caps text messages, the lyrics to the David Bowie song "Kooks," and the extended fight scenes between two women grappling alone in a small house in Los Angeles. I read through the creepy May-December relationship and a female narrator's ejaculation fantasies, in which she imagines herself as multiple men.

Around 2 am, July's anxious first-person narration began to seem normal, even appropriate. Cheryl Glickman—I am unable to separate her from July—is a 40-something LA professional suffering from globus hystericus, an imaginary ball in her throat brought on by stress. Sure, that would happen. Of course.

Haven's work is up through January 31, Fertile Ground goes through February, and Miranda July's prose is just-right for a dreary day—it's gross out, so I thought I'd just let you know. You have options!