It feels like a home decor kind of day over on MOD, where between the new collection from Pigeon Toe Ceramics and a revamped online Sword + Fern, we're overloading on the potential of a blank wall. Click over to see what we're getting into.

• Sword + Fern
• Heather Levine ceramic wall hanging.

I saw Artists Rep's farcical spy comedy Red Herring last weekend. Haven't gotten around to writing about it sooner because it's very much one of those "not for me, but other people will like it" shows—hard to muster up the energy to say "meh." Mercury readers might not be the target demo for this one, but at last Sunday's matinee, everyone in the room *fucking loved it.*

Red Herring is a spoofy thriller about a hard-boiled lady detective, her FBI-agent lover, and a hapless scientist turned spy who just happens to be engaged to Joe McCarthy's daughter. There are lots of hijinks and mistaken identities and star-crossed lovers; the whole thing can fairly be described as a "romp."

The biggest problem with Artists Rep's production, other than a frankly mediocre and needlessly sentimental script, was the pacing. What should have been a madcap piling of absurd joke upon absurd joke instead went more like "absurd joke... [pause for scene change]." The audience really shouldn't be allowed that much time to reflect on characters or plot—because those things are broad-stroked and sketchy, and don't hold up to scrutiny particularly well.

Here are a few things you can expect from the show.

Silliness.
Vana O'Brien stealing every single scene she's in. She's so good.
Lots of WOMEN, amirite men?? type jokes. 'Cause marriage.
Leif Norby just fucking nailing a range of bit characters. (More funny roles for him, please.)
A surprisingly miscast Michael Mendleson.
Audience members laughing so hard they begin openly weeping, while your friendly neighborhood theater critic looks on in bemusement.

Red Herring runs through March 23 at Artists Rep. More info and tickets here.

Go do it. Now.

TAL's reporters spent five months at Chicago's Harper High, a school which last year saw 29 shootings of current and recent students. Violent gangs, the show explains, are not something these students "join": Gang affiliation is determined by which neighborhood a student's family lives in, and it's essentially compulsory. Kids walk home from school in the middle of the street because it feels safer than taking the tree-lined sidewalks; administrators must decide whether to cancel the Homecoming dance after a shooting; and counselors pour incredible amount of themselves into helping students who are profoundly traumatized by the amount of violence they've seen.

It's just ridiculously good, important storytelling set at the intersection of gun violence and the sorry state of our nation's schools. Listen to the first episode here.

Some of you might be wondering why we have the sexiest man alive on the cover this week?

The words I would use to explain the reason are limp in comparison to the video below and the epic NSFW photos after the jump.

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Know Your City!

As announced last week at their annual fundraiser The Perfect Pickle, local history nonprofit the Dill Pickle Club has rechristened themselves Know Your City. Less memorable, sure, but also more on-message, and it would translate well to other cities, should they ever decide to branch out.

Their website is currently still transitioning to its new identity. In the meantime, here's a Facebook page.

In this week's paper, I wrote about how, as part of a general organizational overhaul, local history & activism nonprofit the Dill Pickle Club is poised to change their name to something that sounds a little bit less like a Portlandia punchline.

They're announcing the new name tomorrow at their annual fundraiser The Perfect Pickle, an all-around action-packed night featuring a pickle contest and samplings, music, presentations from Dill Pickle Club partners, and emcee A.C. Dickson.

Advance tickets to tomorrow's show are available here

I've got two pairs of tickets to give away to The Perfect Pickle. To win, email me by 3 pm today with "Dill Pickle Club" in the headline and your best suggestion for the organization's new name in the body.

This amazing Half-Drag photo series was created by photographer Leland BobbÉ. If you need to melt your brain a wee bit, go see the whole collection here.

Last Friday at the warehouse formerly known as Worksound (820 SE Alder), members of Portland's art community came together for Not So Quiet, "a curated evening of dance, music, literary readings, conversation, and hand crafted cocktails." The event marked the start of fundraising efforts for the recently-announced NOW Portland Triennale, a once-every-three-years art showcase that, according to official PR, "[aims] to bring a selection of international curators and artists to Portland for a series of exhibitions in the summer of 2015."

At the helm of the team organizing NOW is former Worksound director and local educator Modou Dieng— working alongside Matty Byloos, Jane Kate Wood, Nina Reynolds, Rebecca Steele, and Jason DoizÉ— and if Friday night was evidence of what's to come, the team has a curatorial eye worth getting excited about: the evening featured paintings by Portland's Jason Traeger and video by San Francisco's Anne Colvin, readings by local poets Barry Sanders and Matthew Dickman, contemporary dance from San Francisco's Renee Rhodes, and live music by local ambient-noise gurus, Golden Retriever.

Though, as strong as Friday's lineup was, the point of NOW isn't so much to feature regional talent as it is to, in the words of NOW "committee collective" member Jane Kate Wood, "bring the rich culture of the Pacific Northwest in conversation with the international creative and intellectual community."

While local art events like PICA's Time-Based Art festival and Disjecta's Portland Biennial have broken ground in this area— TBA collects local and international artists under a single, curatorial banner, and the Portland Biennial highlights local art in a format worthy of outside attention— neither focus primarily on bringing the international art community to Portland. Which is to say, there's room to grow in terms of how Portland interfaces with the larger art world, and NOW is designed to do just that.

But what are NOW's organizers doing to make The City That Could's international art dreams come true?

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In my ongoing battle to add something other than snark to the Internet I'm going to start a series about Acts of Unadulterated Awesomeness. I'll feature people, things, and ideas that are completely terrific even if everybody else already knew about them but me.

[1] Near a coffee shop I hang out in, there's a wifi hotspot called "Pretty Fly For a Wifi." I want to connect to it just to feel like I'm part of something great. Now I've heard tell there are other people around the world with this wifi name, but that doesn't bother me. It just means there's a tie for greatest human ever.

[2] Tiny horses chained to sidewalk. Old news, I know, but new ones keep popping up and every time it makes me giggle. Every. Time. Keep it up, tiny horse whisperer.

[3] The army of people who powerwash the sidewalks downtown every night so it doesn't always smell like urine. Keep it up, you guys. You're doing God's work.

[4] Succulents in weird shaped glass jars. This is also old news but I still like them. Whoever is spritzing them and finding the weird jars, good job.

[5] Skylines. We've got a great combination of a good looking town and a bunch of talented artists. My two current favorites are Matt Hopkin's backdrop for my show which he made using a lot of painter's tape:

• Matt Hopkins

and Ursula Barton's drippy ones that I first saw at Crafty Wonderland.

• UrsulaBarton.com

As I've noted before, the best part of the Tri-City Herald's website is that it has an entire section devoted to the tattoos of Tri-Citizens. They're in the "Entertainment" section!

The last time I reminded you of this important fact, the subjects of the various tattoos included everything from Captain America to lupus. But those were the Tri-City Tattoos of 2012—which means that now, those tattoos are old and busted. Now it's 2013. Now it's time for some new hotness. The Tri-City Herald knows this. Of course the Tri-City Herald knows this. Let's do this.

Also, okay, fine: Is this—presumably the first—gallery of 2013 Tri-City Tattoos as impressive as the Tri-City Herald's earlier tattoo galleries? No. Or rather: Not yet. But remember this: 2013 is young..

I have two pairs of tickets to give away to "Russian Roulette," the newest show from the brainiacs behind Portland storytelling series Back Fence, PDX.

This marks the debut of a new format for Back Fence: A theme will be selected by the audience from a pre-determined list, and a storyteller will be chosen at random to tell a true five-minute story on that theme.

As an added bonus, it'll be the first public appearance of Sarah Mirk as a former employee of the Mercury—Sarah's joined in the storytelling lineup by graphic novelist Nicole J. Georges (who's reading from her new book tonight at Powell's), Bad Reputation Productions' Shelley McLendon, The Making of South Park: 6 Days to Air director Arthur Bradford, designer Adam Arnold, and others.

The show is tomorrow night at the Mission Theater; to win tickets, email me with "Russian Roulette" in the subject line by 10 am tomorrow. Winners will be emailed by 10:30 or so.

As the local theater community waits to find out if the Theater Communications Group will hold their 2014 conference in Portland, our visual arts scene just got a boost that's just as significant: This morning, PICA announced the formation of the Precipice Fund, a $75,000 pool funded by the Warhol Foundation which will go to support "Portland-based unincorporated visual art collectives, alternative spaces, and collaborative projects." Translation: Small, under-the-radar arts organizations that may have trouble qualifying for more traditional grants.

PICA will administer the fund in the form of 15-20 microgrants ranging from $500-$5,000. The Warhol Foundation has committed to backing Precipice for at least two years, with the possibility of extending their commitment further.

From the press release:

The Precipice Fund will deliver support to unincorporated visual artist groups, informal organizations, and initiatives based in Portland, Oregon, who are presenting new work in informal, but significant ways. Recipients must have a public presence, intersect with diverse audiences, and contribute to the vitality of contemporary art practice.

Oregon Arts Watch has a more in-depth look at the grant, including details on how it'll be administered. Application details will be available April 1—check in with PICA's website for more details as that date approaches.