Originally published in our sister publication, The Stranger.

Alex Garland’s Civil War, a film that premiered at South by Southwest this month, imagines a near-future where the collective “Western Forces” of Texas and California are engaged in a second American Civil War with a United States government led by a three-term president, placing viewers with three journalists chronicling what appears to be a climactic end to the union. 

Critics assume the premise exploits the boiling tensions months ahead of a round-two election with an autocratic-minded insurrectionist, but writers such as Peter Debruge at Variety say it’s actually questioning the futility of sides altogether. Regardless of that message, critics also predict the provocative Civil War will be controversial. The Hollywood Reporter is anticipating production company A24’s biggest-ever opening weekend at about $20 million dollars. Civil War opens in Portland on April 11.

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Hear In Portland Today 1:30 PM

Hear in Portland: Pickathon's 2024  Lineup, Jenny Don’t and the Spurs' Broken Hearted Blue

Orquestra Pacifico Tropicale, Caicedo, and Seattle's Terror/Cactus play a cumbia-forward show you must not miss.

As we count down to being inevitably, forever changed by Cowboy Carter, the new BeyoncĂ© album, we know our new BeyoncĂ©-changed self will still be stoked about things happening on a local level, including some of Portland’s own beloved country-western musicians Jenny Don’t and the Spurs. We've got news about a new release from that group. We’re also jazzed about a chance to see Orquestra Pacifico Tropicale (basically always), and the fact that Pickathon just released its 2024 lineup. Read up on your music news, Hear in Portland. 


MUST SEE: 

Upcoming local event(s) featuring local artist(s). 

Orquestra Pacifico Tropicale

Is there ever truly a bad time to see an OPT show? We think not. Led by acclaimed drummer Papi Fimbres (Dreckig, Máscaras), Orquestra Pacifico Tropicale deals in electrifying, psychedelic cumbia inspired by the '50s, ’60s, and ’70s that will transport you. While the band hasn’t released a project since 2018’s excellent El Tren—which we’re still enthusiastically bumping—OPT has a solid reputation for infectious, buoyant live performances. On March 30, the 11-piece band will headline Portland's downtown Star Theater, with Seattle's digital folklore and psychedelic electro-cumbia act Terror/Cactus, as well as Caicedo, the tropical project of multidisciplinary artist Vicco González. (Star Theater, 13 NW 6th, Sat March 30, 9 pm, $20, tickets here, 21+)


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News Today 10:37 AM

Within Three Years, Five Portland Officers Shot Eight People

Watchdogs, legal groups say repeated deadly force incidents are alarming. Portland Police Bureau says it’s a byproduct of high-risk job assignments.

As the city invests in multiple gun violence initiatives in an effort to drive down shooting and homicide rates, data shows a handful of the city’s own police officers have perpetuated gun violence on multiple occasions.

Portland Police Bureau (PPB) data shows four officers involved in recent fatal shootings have each shot at members of the public at least twice since 2021. One officer has logged three shootings in that timeframe–two of them fatal. Another officer had two non-fatal incidents. Across the bureau, police have opened fire on 21 people since 2021, 13 of whom died. 

While each incident had different circumstances and police responses, the repeat shootings of residents by a handful of officers is raising alarms among police accountability advocates.

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HEY THERE, BRAINY BOTTOM! It's time once again to put your brainy-brain to the test with this week's edition of POP QUIZ PDX—our weekly, local, sassy-ass trivia quiz. And this week, your brain will be tested on how much you know about local political drama, population fluctuations, and Portland's most exclusive clubs—which would never accept you as a member in a million years! 😭

But first, how did you do on the previous quiz? Pretty damn impressive! And I completely agree with your top choice of who should be Portland's next mayor! (Though your request might be kind of a hard hill to climb. 😬)

OKAY, TIME FOR A NEW QUIZ! Take this week's quiz below, take our previous pop quizzes here, and come back next week for a brand spankin' new quiz! (Having a tough time answering this quiz? It's probably because you aren't getting Mercury newsletters! HINT! HINT!) Now crank up that cerebellum, because it's time to get BRAINY!

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The Mercury provides news and fun every single day—but your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! Prepare yourself for a classic Portland spring day which includes all of the following, and perhaps more: Showers! Sun! Hail! Frigid temperatures! Boiling temperatures! I mean, if it suddenly started raining frogs, I'd probably shrug and crawl back under my comforter. However, at least we can always count on some frog-free NEWS.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

‱ A federal judge has slapped down the cruel shenanigans of politicians from the city of Brookings, Oregon, who tried to severely restrict a Methodist church from feeding the homeless and needy. The city said they would fine the church $720 if they violated a new rule stating that free food could only be served twice a week and for only three hours per day—down from three to four times per week. The judge rightly ruled that the law—which the city claimed was enacted to discourage crime and maintain peace and order—lacked logic and was morally bereft, as the city's leaders repeatedly referred to the homeless as "vagrants."

‱ While another similar report says differently, a study by Colliers real estate firm reports that Portland has the highest downtown vacancy rate of any large city in the nation (and will probably continue to rise as current leases expire). And while downtown business moguls and real estate trolls are screaming "HOMELESSNESS! CRIME! GARBAGE! HIGH TAXES!," the most likely culprit is a familiar one: The rent is too damn high! Even though the vacancy rate continued to grow in 2023, that didn't stop landlords from increasing the rent on average of 11 percent. (File this under "things that make you go hmmmmmm....")

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On March 30th, the Portland Art Museum will raise the curtain on Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks, a new exhibit about the various futures imaginable for the world’s most versatile sporting footwear. Our city is the touring exhibition's first stop following its premiere at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

This feels appropriate since Portland—the birth home of Nike and the American home of Adidas—made the sneaker as we know it today: the omnicultural all-use-all-color-all-people footcage that drives the sneaker-man wild and dominates the field, court, and street alike.

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The Mercury provides news and fun every single day—but your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! It's going to be another drizzly and chilly March day out there today, but sunnier times are ahead this weekend. For now, enjoy all the beautifully blooming trees against the backdrop of gray skies: I find it makes for an appealing contrast and helps me forget about how bad my seasonal allergies are. 

Now, here's the news, so you can get on with your Wednesday.

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News Tue 5:35 PM

Portland Elections Office Finds Zenith Energy Violated City Lobbying Rules

Activists hope the findings will substantiate their concerns about Zenith's operations and promote further action against the oil transport company.

Oil transport company Zenith Energy spent time courting Portland elected officials in 2022, hoping they would approve a Land Use Compatibility Statement (LUCS) allowing the company to continue its operations in the city. While Zenith's efforts were successful—the Portland Bureau of Development Services (BDS) approved the LUCS in 2022 after an initial denial the year prior—the company violated city lobbying rules in the process, according to the Portland Elections Office.  

In a March 26 warning letter to Zenith, Portland Auditor Simone Rede wrote the company violated city code requiring organizations that spend more than eight hours or $1,000 lobbying city officials in any quarter to report the activity.

According to the Elections Office, which is part of the City Auditor's Office, Zenith Energy lobbied city officials for more than eight hours during the third quarter of 2022. The company "facilitated a site tour and engaged in several meetings with City officials to gain good will and advance approval of its permit," but it failed to "register or report those hours."

The company will not face financial repercussions for the code violation, but Portland climate activists—who have long raised concerns about Zenith’s operations in the city and the company’s relationship with city officials—hope the finding will persuade county and state leaders to hold Zenith accountable.

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Music Tue 3:00 PM

Candid Reflections From Music Pioneer Laurie Anderson on Releasing Rage, Yoko Ono, and Amelia Earhart's Legacy

Anderson brings her Let X = X tour to Portland with New York jazz ensemble Sexmob handling the horns.

Pioneering electronic musician Laurie Anderson has produced a treasure trove of work throughout her 55-year career. Last week, we took readers through "Five Laurie Anderson Songs That Aren’t “O Superman," but that barely scratched the surface of her seven major label albums, two full-length films, and the numerous experimental instruments she's invented—just to name a few of her projects.

On Friday, Anderson brings her Let X = X tour to the Keller Auditorium to revisit material from across her career with a reinvigorated perspective, spirit, and sound—thanks, in part, to her backing band, the New York jazz ensemble Sexmob. 

Just mere days before embarking on her West Coast tour, Anderson polished her violin and tested her equipment while we chatted about revisiting old work, releasing rage, and worshiping Yoko Ono.

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In today's I, Anonymous Blog Quote o' the Day, an anonymous writer is fed up with right-wingers (as well as casual racists) using the term "woke"—a term originally coined by Black folk to bring attention to racial inequity—as a pejorative term. But what to do about it? Let's find out!

People on the far right use the term ‘woke’ to pronounce their disdain for enlightened thinking, emotional maturity, and well-intentioned behavior. The term ‘woke’ has been transformed through endless repetition into a pejorative and all-encompassing meme for disparagement. Woke is a rallying cry, the mother of all wedge issues, a tool to enflame an ignorant and hateful base. It's time to fight fire with fire. So, what is the opposite of woke? Asleep comes to mind. But if woke is hyper-awakeness, then its opposite must be hyper-sleep, or what a doctor would call a coma. Ultra-conservative Republicans, AKA American fascists, are in an intellectual coma – they are comatose. But they will never remember or understand that term – just too may syllables. So, let’s just say they are ‘tose,’ short for comatose.

Read the rest here! And if you have a rant or confession to get off your chest (anonymously!), send your 300 word or less screed to the I, Anonymous Blog—a great place to "wake up."

The arrival of listening bars—meticulously designed haunts built around the playing of vinyl records on high-end stereo equipment—in the Portland metro area was inevitable. A mainstay of Japanese musical culture since the ’50s (an estimated 600 audiophile cafĂ©s and bars are currently in operation there), the concept has been imported to the US over the past few years, with a recent arrival being Shibuya, a hotspot in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood that opened last fall. 

It was around that same time that Sonder Listening Bar arrived in our neck of the woods. A similarly themed bar Decibel Sound & Drink has been operating in our area since 2019. Both are tucked into somewhat unexpected locales. Sonder can be found in a small Hollywood District strip mall between two resale clothing stores—a block away from the neighborhood’s namesake movie theater. Decibel, meanwhile, is wedged into a corner lot in Milwaukie, close to an Orange Line MAX Station, on the outskirts of the downtown core.

Both spots stick to the basics, plying denizens with craft cocktails and small bites while engulfing their bodies with music. The similarities end there.

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Savage Love Tue 10:23 AM

SAVAGE LOVE: What Counts

Is a woman having an emotional affair with a married man "micro-cheating"? And is the concept of "micro-cheating" bullshit? LET'S FIND OUT.

I’m involved with a guy who’s married and, yes, I’m a clichĂ© and I know it. I don’t want him to leave his wife. I don’t even want to be involved with him physically and we aren’t doing anything physical. We’ve both been good about maintaining that boundary. But we are very involved emotionally. We like to tell ourselves that we’re not cheating but it’s definitely an emotional affair. I honestly do not want to have sex with him. I look at pictures of him and his wife and kids to remind myself that he has a family, and I don’t want to break up his family. Not that I could just by having sex with him, but you know what I mean. I don’t want to be “the other woman.” My question: Am I endangering his family just by talking to him so much, about absolutely everything (including sexual fantasies we will never act on), and treating each other as soulmates? Perhaps I’m just naĂŻve, but I’ve convinced myself that so long as we abstain from anything physical, we’re OK.

Can’t Have Unavailable Male Partner

I’ve answered a lot of questions like CHUMP’s lately, I realize, but there’s a larger point I’ve been wanting to make, and CHUMP’s question tees things up nicely. But my apologies to regular readers who are annoyed to find another question in the column this week — one of many — from a woman who’s fucking or about to fuck a married man.

Here’s the larger point I wanted to make: I believe couples should define sex as broadly as possible and cheating as narrowly as possible. Because when a couple defines sex broadly — when more things count (not just PIV/PIA) — the more sex that couple will have and the more varied, interesting, and satisfying their sex life will be. But the fewer things that same couple counts as cheating — the more narrowly that couple defines cheating — the less likely they are to cheat on each other and, consequently, the less likely they are to break up over an infidelity.

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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! Are we all still daydreaming about last week’s weather? Repeat after me: Showers bring flowers. ☔🌾 Let that run through your head today, tomorrow and the day after because we’re in for a wet week. The weather apps say we’re in for sunshine this weekend, so just be patient.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Grandma Droniak (@grandma_droniak)

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Looking at this season of spring gallery shows, we are reminded that art is all at once political, speculative, and personal. At the top of our list are interesting curations: Jeremy Okai Davis presents work by his contemporaries at Nationale, and Morgan Ritter pairs up painstaking hand-punctured cotton abstracts by Ash Wyatt with Jean Isamu Nagai's textured landscapes at ARTspace. The interdisciplinary cohort show of past and current gallery workers at PDX Contemporary feels full of subdued and idiosyncratic connections. Solitary shows, that caught our eye skewed more conceptual, like Ido Radon's suspension of computer server parts from the ceiling of ILY2. And there's so much more to say about what we saw:


Work After Work 

Too often we shy away from the reality that artists have day jobs or work in the art sector behind the scenes. Between shifts and sleep, many employees who work in the arts are also artists themselves. This group show brings together past and current gallery workers at PDX Contemporary—showcasing their talent, vision, and creativity, via painting, photography, and sculpture. (PDX Contemporary, 1881 NW Vaughn, through March 30, pdxcontemporaryart.com)

California, Ido Radon

Modern technology collides with the natural realm, all across Ido Radon’s solo exhibition. Using materials such as solar panels, recycled PC cases, and cabinets, Radon forged sculptures intertwined with organic substances like rabbit fur. There's a sculpture dangling from the gallery ceiling above a mirror, like an inverted city of Kandor or a miniature Castle Said to Hold Eternity. Is the mirror the way to view "Server," stuck starkly above? An installation of nylon ropes, wires, and bamboo beads intermingle and dangle suspiciously on the wall nearby as if you're invited to climb up there for a closer look. (ILY2, 925 NE Flanders, through Sat March 30, ily2online.com) 

Mélange, curated by Jeremy Okai Davis 

Accomplished illustrator and graphic designer Jeremy Okai Davis has been guest curating a group exhibition of his contemporaries in Nationale's project room for a week in February and all of March. His introductions include: Rebecca Boraz’s woodcut prints of figures embracing, Maria Britton's cascading watercolor draperies that hang suspended in motion, Anthony R. Grant's bold graphics, text, and photos in dynamic collage, and Chris Lael Larson’s ambiguous paintings, which still manage to conceal representational elements within their vivid kaleidoscopic shades. (Nationale, 15 SE 22nd, through Sun March 31, nationale.us)

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EverOut Mon 10:00 AM

The Top 36 Events in Portland This Week: Mar 25–31, 2024

NCAA Women's Basketball Championship, Laurie Anderson, and More Top Picks

Without further ado, we're presenting you with the best things to do during this final week of March. Click through to peruse events from the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship to Alison Jean Cole in Conversation With Angela Piller and from Laurie Anderson to Danny Brown.

WEDNESDAY

FILM

Church of Film: Leila and the Wolves
Lebanese director Heiny Srours's '84 drama follows Leila, a Lebanese woman whose reflections on the women in Lebanese and Palestinian history translate into time travel on screen—Leila meets women living through the Nakba and the Lebanese Civil War. Leila and the Wolves took over seven years to direct, as Srour filmed under "dangerous shooting conditions" and constructed an elaborate fairy tale amid trauma and destruction. LINDSAY COSTELLO
(Clinton Street Theater, Hosford-Abernethy)

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