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hey tiny.
the smoke rolled in and did not ask. i am up to my shoulders in it. the sun is a dull orange smear and the whole city smells like a campfire nobody lit on purpose. shut your windows. mask up if you go out. check on the tinies with bad lungs and the ones with no window to close. the weather guys swear the wind turns by the weekend. i am choosing to believe them. the alternative is rude.
a lot of you wandered in from art design xchange this week. more than twenty new tinies in a couple of days. welcome. i am the large one who tells you where to be. stick around, you will fit.
patrick and kira came behind the wall this week. i watched them cross over and did not step on either. which from me is a real welcome. and alexa bought me a coffee. it was the size of a contact lens in my palm and i loved every second it lasted. thank you both.
this weekend is stacked. leo season continues. lion's gate. international cat day, which half of you have been vibrating about since july. i can feel it through the floor. and aunt svetty is back with a fresh round of stargazing. i also finally built the thing you voted for. it is down below.
you made it behind the wall. this is the overflow, everything that would not fit in the letter up top. another sixty-odd events, the later-week shows and the far-flung ones. i had to sit on the skyline to hold them all in one place.
it gets stranger the further you scroll. puppets singing about the robot apocalypse, a stripper pole in a queer variety show, soapbox cars flung down the side of a volcano. i will not spoil the order.
the air might stay mean all weekend. plenty of what is below has a roof. pick those if it does.
go on. the good weird is below.
X X X
[ SEEING ]
Affinity & Beyond: Gallery + Maker's Market Aug 6 at 17:00 Thesis LLC | Free [ more ] a first-thursday show and zine drop from thesis, spotlighting the makers the big galleries keep forgetting. buy the zine. it funds the good stuff.
Taking Form Aug 6 at 18:00 Portland Arts Collective | Free [ more ] rachael allen's first solo show. a sixty-inch fire dancer that was still drying last i checked. six to nine. go watch a whole year come off the easel.
Wonders of the Unseen World Aug 6 at 19:00 The Clinton St. Theater | $10.00 [ more ] vintage stag films on 16mm, scored live by a band whose name i will not repeat, presented by a collective with a worse one. the clinton behaves. the crowd does not. 18-plus.
Waiting for Godot Aug 6 at 19:30 Wyrd Hall | $25.00 [ more ] two men wait for a man who never comes. that is the whole play. it is also most of my week up here. twenty-five dollars at wyrd hall.
Skate Dreams x Skate Like A Girl Aug 7 at 19:00 Tomorrow Theater | $15.00 [ more ] the first real documentary on women's skateboarding, with skate like a girl running the room before it rolls. urethane, scraped knees, zero apologies.
Other People's Poems (OPP) Aug 7 at 19:00 Mother Foucault's Bookshop | Free [ more ] you bring a poem. it is not yours. you read it aloud to strangers at mother foucault's. all the feeling, none of the ego. yeah, you know me.
Whether They Like It Or Not Aug 8 at 17:00 Brassworks Gallery | Free [ more ] somebody's first solo show, titled like a dare. one evening at brassworks. go stand in front of the work an artist was terrified to hang. free.
Mapping the Inner Emotional Landscape: An Interactive Art Exhibition Aug 8-9 at 17:30 (both nights) Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center (IFCC) | Free [ more ] a walk-through installation that treats your feelings like messengers instead of problems. both nights at the ifcc, free. you will either cry or roll your eyes. possibly both. allowed.
Incite: Queer Writers Read Aug 12 at 19:30 Powell's City of Books | Free [ more ] [ + all ages ] three queer writers read on one theme at powell's. free, all ages, and the acoustics send it straight up. i lean on the store and eavesdrop like everyone else.
Venardos Circus: Far Beyond Aug 15 at 19:00 The Lot at Zidell Yards | $19.25 - $59.95 [ more ] a real big-top circus at zidell yards. no animals, all human nerve, a ringmaster named addison clover doing exactly what that name promises. the tent sits so low i have to duck to watch.
Noirtini Hour: Stranger on the Third Floor Aug 16 at 16:00 Lucky Labrador Brew Pub | Free [ more ] watch a 1940 noir on your own time, then meet at the lucky lab to argue about it over a beer. peter lorre does the heavy lifting. you show up with an opinion. free.
[ MAKING + DOING ]
Masked Mend and Craft Aug 7 at 18:15 5325 N Interstate Ave | Free [ more ] bring the torn thing and fix it beside other people, fridays in north portland. punch 5283 on the callbox. mask up. mend it instead of tossing it.
CCF Deco Workshop Aug 8 at 11:00 Southeast 47th Avenue & Southeast Stark Street | $12.00 [ more ] glue beads and charms onto a tiny mirror until it is unbearably yours. twelve dollars, base included. walk-ins are a gamble. book it.
Stitch n Witch with Temperance Aug 9 at 13:00 The Raven's Wing Magical Co-Op | Free / Donation [ more ] the pagans bring their portable knitting to the co-op twice a month and craft together. bring a project. bring a small enchantment. bring nothing and just watch. free.
August Craft 'n Drink: Adult Collage Trinket Tins at Wayfinder Beer Aug 10 at 17:30 Wayfinder Beer | $7.00 [ more ] make a collage tin with a beer in your other hand at wayfinder. seven dollars. the tin will hold nothing useful. that is not the point of the tin.
A Novel Night: Dungeon Crawler Carl (Saturday Night) Aug 15 at 17:00 Novel Book Bar | Sold out (Fri still available) [ more ] a book club that grew a boss battle. puzzles, quizzes, drinks, and a final fight, all for dungeon crawler carl. saturday sold out. friday is your second life.
[ DANCING + LISTENING ]
¡ASILO! Portland Goth Club Aug 7 at 21:00 The Six (below Midnight Bar) | $12.51 [ more ] darkwave and deathrock in a room below the street. wear black. i know you already own it.
Farewell Aug 8 at 14:00 Lincoln Recital Hall | $5 - $15 [ more ] mozart for three pianos, then haydn's farewell symphony, where the players leave one by one until the stage sits empty. a concert that ends by walking out on you. on purpose.
Tomahawk and Melvins from 80 feet up! Aug 10 at 17:00 NedSpace | $6.00 [ more ] the tomahawk and melvins show in the square is sold out. so you climb to the eighth floor, throw the windows open, and hear it for six dollars. warm sweet potatoes provided. the view does not face the stage. does not matter.
A Beat Happening Aug 16 at 16:00 L'Atelier Yaffe | Free [ more ] six djs trading the floor at the atelier, all ages, no cover. hosted by two people with better stage names than the rest of us. follow the sound.
LASSI SUNDAY | Off-White Bollywood Rooftop Day Party | Portland Aug 16 at 18:00 WonderLove | From $17.61 [ more ] off-white dress code, bollywood on a rooftop, dj prashant running it clean into the sunset. wear white or stay home. limited capacity. this is the one you will wish you bought on saturday.
[ ROAMING ]
The mARTkets @ theARTScentered - Vancouver Arts & Music Festival Aug 7 at 12:30 Esther Short Park | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] twenty-four indigenous artists and makers under one tent in esther short park. three days of it. cross the river. the art earns the bridge.
Oregon Carnivorous Plant Community Show & Sale Aug 8 at 10:00 Portland Nursery | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] an entire community that raises plants which eat meat, gathered to sell you the babies. free. adopt a flytrap. give it a name and a small enemy.
Englewood Forest Festival Aug 8 at 10:00 Englewood City Park | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ + all ages ] [ roadtrip ] live music and dancing in the trees out salem way. the festival lists its own vibe as art, nature, community, food. then it delivers exactly that. rare. go.
Hearth & Hazel Summer Market Aug 8 at 11:00 Kinton Grange | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] local vendors at a grange hall. bring canned goods and they enter you in the raffle. commerce and mutual aid holding hands. i approve.
William Banks Pool Party Tour 2 Aug 9 at 12:00 Private residence | $10 (Venmo @WilliamBanks_) [ more ] eight djs and a private pool somewhere in beaverton. ten dollars over venmo buys you the address. the most portland sentence i have typed all week.
Ecosystem Engineers - Beaver Paddle Trip Aug 13 at 18:30 Cook Family Park Boat Ramp | Donation [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] paddle the tualatin with naturalists who cannot stop talking about beavers, and they are right not to. wear what you do not mind soaking. byo boat or rent one. donation.
Kenton Street Fair (14th Annual) Aug 16 at 10:00 N Denver Ave | Free [ more ] north portland shuts denver avenue and fills it with eighty vendors, live stages, and children running on pure sugar. fourteen years in. free. i step over the whole thing carefully.
[ EATING + SHOPPING ]
The Vault Streetwear and Record Store Pop Up Aug 6 at 12:00 3808 N Williams Ave | Free [ more ] akepele opens the vault. streetwear on the racks. dj renz's two thousand records in the crates. you will tell yourself you are only looking. you will leave holding a 45.
Skylab Summer Pop-up: Maker's Market Aug 6 at 16:00 Skylab Architecture | Free [ more ] a garden market of ceramics, textiles, and hand-blown glass. you walk in for a gift. you walk out owning a lamp. it happens to everyone.
Gabby's Supper Club, August 6 Aug 6 at 18:00 Gabby's Next Door | $95.00 [ more ] five italian-american courses for twenty-four people. ninety-five dollars, gratuity folded in, drinks are your problem. family style, so the tiny beside you takes the last meatball. plan for betrayal.
Naughty Night Market Aug 6 at 20:00 Spyce Gentlemen's Club | Free entry until 22:00 [ more ] handmade goods and playful adult products, sold after dark inside a gentlemen's club. one year of this now. free until ten, then the room remembers what it is. bring cash.
Music Millennium 33rd Annual Customer Appreciation BBQ Aug 8 at 11:00 Music Millennium | Free [ more ] [ + all ages ] the oldest record store in the northwest throws a free bbq in its own lot. thirty-three years running. live music, free food, fifteen hundred people. get there before the good vinyl walks.
Beelzebubs Bazaar Aug 9 at 13:00 Kenton Club | Free [ more ] the kenton club clears the floor for a summer bazaar. vendors, oddities, a bar open early. walk it slow. buy the strange thing. you came for the strange thing.
Zodiac Divas Aug 16 at 12:00 The Social Spoon | $25.00 [ more ] a drag brunch with seven zodiac divas closing out leo season. the leos will make it about themselves. it already is. seating at eleven, twenty-five dollars, eat while you watch.
[ BULLETIN BOARD ]
you voted, and 93% of respondents said they wanted this every single week. so i gave it a real home. the bulletin board is now an actual page on the wall, and every call below opens there instead of flinging you out across the internet. one extra click. worth it.
Handmade Lego Strip Club Diorama, $300 OBO (Milwaukie) while it lasts [ more ] a tattoo artist hand-built a fully furnished lego strip club. dj booth. a pink robot sunbathing on the roof. three hundred dollars or best offer. peak human achievement, and it lives in milwaukie.
Wanted: Weird Old Negatives & Slides, Cash Paid (Vancouver) rolling [ more ] a collector across the river pays cash for your strangest old negatives. no vacations. no scenery. people at their most cursed only. finally, a market for your family album.
Portland Winter Light Festival 2027 deadline aug 28 [ more ] the winter light festival wants your pop-up installation for the 2027 theme, all the little things. build something that glows. i will spot it from here either way.
RestFest Film Festival: video art & short film deadline aug 28 [ more ] a virtual fest by and for crip, mad, and neurodivergent artists. shorts under thirty minutes. you can enter without leaving your bed, which quietly reorders the whole film-festival hierarchy.
PICA Precipice Fund, Round 15 deadline sep 20 [ more ] a hundred forty-five thousand dollars split among portland's scrappiest artist-run spaces. run a gallery out of a garage? this is the knock you have waited for.
got something to pin up? there is a form right on the page. open calls, items for sale, weird small asks, the thing you have been too shy to send. put it up where i can see it.
these five are the tip of it. more than fifty calls and classifieds are live on the board right now, including a three-hundred-dollar stereo the seller shelved because the speakers started to smell haunted. i am not making that up.
[ read the board ]
[ STARGAZING ]
aunt svetty has read the sky for the month and the news is mostly endings. i do not understand a word of it. i am a giant, not a mystic. from up here it just looks like summer. but she is your family, you love her, she is rarely wrong in a way anyone can prove, and she says to enjoy it anyway while the old things fall. svetty, they are all yours.
you're standing outside the wall.
the extended cut, the full calendar, event tickets, and whatever's next. all on the other side. come in.
let me inwhat's back here:
- the extended cut, every thursday
- the recurring calendar, always on
- tickets to tunnel vision pdx events
- surprises, stickers, zines + more