JOHN BENDITT, THE BOATMAKER—Joe Streckert plunged into John Benditt's spare and true prose in The Boatmaker:

The unadorned prose gives the entire reading experience a blank, strange feeling; without descriptive language, Benditt creates the kind of eeriness evoked by an empty white room. Or a blank ocean stretching out on all sides—you can't help but venture in.

KEY FIGURES AT ADAMS AND OLLMAN—Jenna Lechner found the only gallery in Portland that focuses on art by self-taught artists, Adams and Ollman, and reviewed the space's latest, Key Figures, with an eye towards what a work's materiality can tell us about its maker:

A painting by Vaginal Davis, "Jeanne Lanvin, Madame Grès, Elsa Schiaparelli," lists some of its materials as "Britney Spears eye shadow, Wet n Wild nail polish, Afro Sheen, Aqua Net Extra Hold Hair Spray"—three heads are stacked on top of one another on a small piece of cardboard.

THE NIGHT ALIVE AT THIRD RAIL REP—Depending on your receptivity to rescue fantasies, YMMV re: The Night Alive, at Third Rail Repertory Theater. I am allergic to rescue fantasies, and also underwritten female leads, and was therefore... nonplussed:

You guys, SHE'S LITERALLY A HOOKER WITH A HEART OF GOLD. This, along with how woefully underwritten Aimee is (she speaks in monosyllables; she has virtually no backstory) made me feel like I was watching with an angry feminist cockatoo sitting on my shoulder, as it occasionally squawked, "Prrrrroblematic! Prrrrroblematic!"—and also the cockatoo was me.

Yep. Nonplussed. On the bright side, there's tons more art to be wholly plussed over—I endorse the following: PDX Comedy Mixtape!, Back Fence PDX, Reed Arts Week, and—though it isn't until later this month—one of Portland's best new stand-up showcases, Minority Retort!