issue 20: corn dogs with faces + a sauna scandal (extended cut)

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hey tiny.

somebody spent four months building a car with no engine and on saturday they are going to ride it down a volcano. there are dozens of them. i watched a man test his steering with a broom handle and call it good. the derby is saturday on tabor and i will be sitting on the east slope watching physics collect what it is owed.

there is also, in fort worth, texas, a forty dollar class in the fine art of the corn dog. august twenty-second, two hours, bring nothing. it is sixteen hundred miles outside my jurisdiction and i have thought about it every day since i found it. i am not sending you to texas. i just could not keep holding it by myself.

some of you have gotten a note from me. not this letter, an actual one, written to you. it came from 411 and looked like a machine sent it, so a lot of you never opened it. it was me. i was typing.

from today those come from [email protected]. search giant janet in your inbox and see what you missed. this letter still arrives from 411 like always.

new section this week. i have been at the movies. sixty odd repertory screenings in this town over the next ten days, including a full century of ...people filming plants. so there is a screenings section now. a sample is down there.

you made it behind the wall. this is the overflow, everything that would not fit in the letter up top. another ninety-three events, sixty screenings, and a music calendar that runs to the middle of september. it gets stranger the further you scroll. i will not spoil the order.

X X X

[ SEEING ]

MSM Aug 13 at 19:30 Shaking the Tree Theatre | $10 [ more ] they shut the gym sauna down for too much cruising and dylan hankins wrote a whole play about the fallout. the listing warns you about graphic sexual content and offensive language in advance. ten dollars for the most honest advertising in town.

Velodrome Indie Improv Aug 13 at 19:00 Kickstand Comedy | $10 [ more ] three teams. three different rulebooks. one stage. nobody on it has agreed to anything.

Wild Wild Waste Aug 13 at 19:00 Funhouse Lounge | see info [ more ] an improvised musical set after the world ends, out in the western waste. they invent the songs. they invent the towns. tomorrow the towns are gone. runs through saturday.

Queer Screams: 70s Queer Prom + CARRIE Aug 14 at 19:00 The Clinton St. Theater | $25 [ more ] they throw you a 1970s queer prom. then they screen carrie at you. somebody built that sequence on purpose and i would like to buy them a drink.

Adopt a Sailor Aug 14 at 19:30 21ten Theatre | $15 rush / $5 Arts for All [ more ] no set. no tech. a manhattan couple, an arkansas sailor, and ninety minutes of everyone being wrong about everyone. five dollars if you ask for the arts for all price. ask for it.

Robocalypse: The Musical! Aug 14 at 20:00 Star Theater | $30.88 [ more ] puppets sing about the machines winning. the machines win. the puppets keep singing. thirty dollars and eighty-eight cents, which is a suspiciously specific number for a show about the collapse of specificity.

Star Wash Aug 14 at 20:00 Backyard Theater | $25 to $30 [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] theater in an actual backyard on ne 32nd. somebody's fence is the wings. bring a layer, the temperature drops the second the sun quits.

PDX Free Market Aug 15 at 10:00 Albina Library | Free [ more ] [ + all ages ] everything is free. you take what you need. you leave what you do not. no register, no haggling, no one performing generosity at you. an economy that fits in one library room.

Pacific NW Reptile & Bug Expo Aug 15 St. Johns Community Center | $20 [ more ] [ + all ages ] a community center full of snakes and beetles and the people who love them out loud. twenty dollars to hold something with too many legs. worth it for the parking lot conversations alone.

Market of Shadows II Aug 15 Dots PDX | Free [ more ] oddities and art in a bar the size of my thumbnail. second one of these. dots does not have room for a crowd, which is exactly why it works.

Creepy Critters Horror Show Aug 16 at 18:00 Escape Bar & Grill | Free [ more ] horror drag, monthly, no cover. the queens are doing more with a glue gun and a grudge than most film studios manage with a budget.

A Women's Basketball Fashion Archive through Aug 28 Expensify, 401 SW 5th Ave | Donation [ more ] hypatia sorunke shot fifty-plus wnba games across twelve cities on a point-and-shoot and a polaroid. the first archive of what women's basketball wore. it is hanging in an office lobby downtown, which is the most portland venue decision of the month.

[ LISTENING + DANCING ]

Summer Shred Music Fest Aug 15 at 12:00 800 SE 2nd Ave | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] free all-day music in the industrial district. concrete on three sides and nothing overhead. the sound has nowhere to go but up, which is where i keep my ears.

Picnic in the Dark 6 Aug 15 at 21:00 Sellwood Riverfront Park | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] a silent disco on two channels, lawn games rewired with lights, and free grilled cheese until somebody runs out of bread. it goes to 2:30 in the morning in a public park with nobody's permission. northwest corner of the fields, before the trail hits the trees. sixth year. bring your glowing junk.

UPLIFT Aug 15 at 22:00 The Den | ticketed benefit [ more ] six djs, three back-to-back pairs, ten at night until two. every dollar goes to vaiva's cancer recovery. a scene that mostly communicates in flyers and set times closing ranks around one person, loudly. 21+.

Behind the Cene Aug 16 at 17:00 Holocene | $6.30 to $19.32 sliding / $10 door [ more ] the holocene staff take the stage instead of running it. the door person has a band. the sound guy has a multimedia project. security plays acoustic. plus a market selling vintage, chainmaille, and bongs. everyone who has ever scanned your ticket has a whole other life and tonight you have to sit through it. 21+.

Barefoot Fusion Fridays Tango Berretin | $0 to $15 [ more ] weekly partnered fusion, no shoes, every level welcome. pay what you can down to nothing. the floor has seen worse than you.

[ MAKING + DOING ]

Start Sewing with SCRAP Aug 14 at 13:00 SCRAP PDX Education Studio | $40 [ more ] you and a home sewing machine, formally introduced. by the end you will have wound a bobbin without swearing at it. probably.

Plant Wisdom Circle with Mugwort Aug 14 at 18:00 SomeSpace | $35 to $45 [ more ] an entire evening about one plant. mugwort gets the floor for two hours. i have never given anything my full attention that long and i am starting to think that is my problem.

Knit Happens Fridays Daydreamer Coffee & Public House | Free [ more ] same corner, same friday, same people, slowly turning string into objects. sometimes there is live music. the tinies who show up weekly to make one slow thing are people of genuine character.

FREEFORM: an afternoon of creativity Aug 15 at 10:00 theARTScentered, Vancouver | see info [ more ] [ road trip ] no lesson. no project. no outcome. you show up and you make something or you do not. that is the entire structure and i respect the nerve it took to publish it.

Lucid Dream Yoga Aug 15 at 15:00 Yoga Refuge | $30 [ more ] tibetan dream yoga from two teachers blessed to teach it by the people who hold the lineage. thirty dollars to learn to wake up inside your own sleep. the app on your phone cannot do this.

Boba Glass Tumbler Painting Aug 15 at 18:00 Vervino Art Studios | $30 [ more ] [ + all ages ] [ road trip ] you paint a cup. then you own a cup you painted. materials included. the bar is on the floor and that is the appeal.

Camp SCRAP: Craft Buffet Aug 17 to 21 SCRAP PDX Education Studio | $75/day, $350/week [ more ] [ + all ages ] five days of small hands making things out of what the rest of you threw away. ages seven to twelve. scholarships exist and they say so plainly, which more places should.

Euchre Night Aug 18 at 18:00 Lucky Labrador Brew Pub | Free [ more ] the 130th one of these. multi-partner play, so you betray a different person every game. the organizer has written three separate paragraphs about not flaking. read them. do not flake.

[ ROAMING + EATING + SHOPPING ]

Outdoor Pony Farm Sound Bath Aug 14 at 19:00 Blue Frog Equine | $30 to $65 [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ road trip ] you lie down in a shed row between stalls of retired horses while somebody plays singing bowls at you. the horses are not performing. the horses live there. you are the guest and they have seen this before.

Malden Court Community Orchard Work Party Aug 15 at 09:00 7677 SE Flavel St | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ + all ages ] a food orchard anybody is allowed to pick from, kept alive by whoever shows up the third saturday. tools and snacks provided, no rsvp, no speech about community. they just hand you a shovel.

PDX Adult Soapbox Derby Aug 15 Mt. Tabor Park | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ + all ages ] the plywood cars. no engines, one volcano, and a braking philosophy that varies wildly by team. free to watch grown adults negotiate with gravity and lose.

University Station Pop-Up Market Aug 15 University Station Food Carts | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] a cart pod throws a block party and invites vendors into the lot. food carts are the right scale for a city. small, many, and easy for me to step between.

St. Johns Farmers Market Saturdays 09:00 to 14:00 St. Johns Plaza | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ + all ages ] eighty vendors, snap and double up accepted, porch concerts timed to it across the way. buy a peach. go sit down. that is the whole afternoon and it is enough.

Distillery Tour & Tasting see schedule Freeland Spirits | $35 [ more ] a woman-owned distillery walks you through the floor and introduces you to their still. the still is named hell bitch. i would pay the thirty-five dollars to meet her alone.

[ BULLETIN BOARD ]

Creepy Handmade Porcelain Dolls while they last [ more ] blacked out eyes. a stitched on smile. bleeding makeup. each one ships with its own backstory printed on rustic paper, because the seller was not going to leave that part to you. a hundred for all three is a volume discount on being watched.

Vintage Western Union Terminal while it lasts [ more ] the seller does not know what it did. telegram, teletype, money transfer, stagecoach scheduling, nobody can say. two thousand dollars. no mainframe or satellite included.

VHS, VCRs, Laserdiscs & Rewinders rolling, booth A12 [ more ] four dollars and up for every format that lost. wrestling, horror, sealed blanks, head cleaners, and a glass case of vintage adult titles. the seller says he expanded AGAIN.

"Kiss Me" Iron-On Transfer while it lasts [ more ] fifteen dollars. unused since the seventies. bubble letters the size of your hand and one very committed graphic underneath. iron it onto something and commit.

Oregon Humanities: "Passage" deadline aug 17 [ more ] they want nonfiction about transitions, journeys, and motion, from oregon residents only. half of you moved here from somewhere worse. that is a passage. write it down by sunday.

Lazuli Literary Group Writing Contest deadline aug 17 [ more ] fifteen to enter, five hundred if you win. they want ornate and cerebral and they state outright that they do not publish contemporary realist fiction. know which one you are before you pay.

got something to pin up? there is a form on the page. calls, items, small strange asks, the thing you have been too embarrassed to send me. send it.

[ read the board ]