issue 22: a man wants a nemesis + competitive parallel parking (extended cut)

/ / /

hey tiny.

we lost dolly and tim curry on tuesday. both eighty. one built a theme park to employ her hometown. the other put on heels in 1973 and made the rest of you braver about leaving the house. dj action slacks put dolly on at the kenton club that night and refused to stop. no flyer. no ticket. the kenton club has a low roof and i heard every track through the shingles.

fifty of you wandered in this week off reddit. welcome. you are tinies now. onboarding is over. misty arrived last and then wrote back to me the same night, which almost nobody does.

three of you climbed behind the wall since friday. rachel, who called this a real time filter for the city. ed, who went monthly. and misty who bought a full year blind, thirty-six hours in, having read nothing at all. i am treating that as a dare.

last friday. the eighth-floor picnic. the room was too big, which somehow forced everyone to act cozier. kira's name tag station did its job, which was letting strangers talk without having to invent an excuse first. there was a photo booth with a giant ant in it. ben bought a ticket at the door and then paid for a coffee the next day, which breaks the laws of commerce.

somebody left a note on the way out claiming janet is my favorite fragrance. i am enormous. no one has ever been tall enough to smell me. i would very much like to know what you think you inhaled.

you made it behind the wall. good. down here is the rest of the city.

what is down here that is not up there: a grief circle masquerading as a happy hour. a three-hundred-and-twenty-one-dollar hat woven from ditch weeds. a fly fishing film festival that fills the aladdin. strangers paying to hold each other in vancouver. and a weekend in molalla that costs two hundred and seventy-nine dollars. i am listing it. i am absolutely not endorsing it.

[ SEEING ]

Art Opening: Matthew Hopkins, McMonster, Steady Betty Aug 27 at 17:00 The Goodfoot Lounge | Free [ more ] last thursday happens on alberta and everyone knows it. this one went upstairs in a pub on stark instead, three painters and a dj, and declined to compete for the sidewalk.

Multiple Maniacs 2026 Aug 27 at 18:00 Flight 64 | Free [ more ] a printmaking co-op named itself after the john waters picture where the travelling sideshow turns out to be a robbery operation. that is a studio telling you exactly how seriously it intends to behave.

Mall Movie Marathon Aug 27 at 20:00 Cartopia Food Carts | Free [ more ] films set in malls, in a city whose most famous mall is now a bicycle race course. nostalgia for a building type that already finished dying here.

Can Can's Dolly! Aug 28 at 18:30 Can Can, 6 SW 3rd Ave | $87 [ more ] this was a tribute to a living woman when the tickets went on sale. it is not that anymore. nobody in that room on friday is getting what they paid for, and it will be better.

PUGapalooza Aug 29 at 10:00 Portland Saturday Market | Free [ more ] a breed physically incapable of cooling itself, gathered en masse, on pavement, in august, under a bridge. bring a hose and a sense of duty.

Goth in the Graveyard Aug 30 at 11:00 Lone Fir Cemetery | Free [ more ] lone fir holds some of the oldest trees in this city and therefore some of the best shade in it, which turns the whole morning into a question of which patch you commit to and how early. everyone attending owns exactly one color and will be defending their ground in it.

ISRC: The 2026 Gay Portland Pageant Aug 30 at 17:00 Darcelle XV Showplace | Free [ more ] a celebration of the decades, in the building darcelle ran until she was eighty-nine and then kept running. the rose court has outlasted most institutions in this city, including several with budgets.

BK Sharad Sep 3 at 19:30 Siren Theater | $22 [ more ] one night. no run, no return date, no second chance to have meant to go.

Rising Sideways Sep 3 at 20:00 The Circus Project | $15 to $25 sliding [ more ] a sliding scale on aerial work, which nobody does, because rigging does not slide. somebody ate that difference on purpose.

Radical Harvest Craft Faire & Community Center Sep 5 at 11:00 Symbiop Garden Shop | Free [ more ] the second half of that name is doing all the work. anyone can throw a craft fair. declaring yourself a community center for one afternoon takes nerve.

Halloween Swamp Meet Sep 5 at 12:00 Oaks Amusement Park | Free [ more ] in an amusement park open since 1905, halloween begins whenever the vendors decide it begins. they have decided it begins now.

[ MAKING + DOING ]

Wheels & Wings Aug 27 at 16:00 632 NE 267th Ave, Camas | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ road trip ] named precisely what it is, which almost nothing in this letter can claim.

How to Play Gaelic Sports Aug 27 at 18:00 T.C. O'Leary's Pub | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] hurling did not require helmets until 2010 and involves a stick and a ball moving at highway speed. they will teach you anyway, out back, for nothing.

Building A Set: Clowning Workshop with Annabelle Wright Aug 27 at 19:00 Curious Comedy Theater | $47.50 [ more ] anyone can be funny once. this is about building the thing you can do again on purpose, which is the part nobody teaches and everyone needs.

Meet Market Aug 28 at 11:00 Vancouver Station Food Carts | $25 [ more ] [ road trip ] everyone present has paid money to be approached by strangers. no ambiguity, no reading of signals, no wondering. the most honest social event in this letter.

Beats For Breakfast Aug 29 at 10:00 B-Side Records & Vintage | Free [ more ] making beats inside a record shop, surrounded on all sides by the source material, before noon. the sampling ethics are somebody else's problem.

Full Moon River Paddle Aug 29 at 18:30 Cook Park Boat Ramp, Tigard | Donation [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ road trip ] the tualatin at night under an eclipse. the moon will be doing something complicated and you will be on the water underneath it.

Moonlight Train Excursion Aug 29 at 19:30 Garibaldi to Wheeler | $57 to $77 [ more ] [ road trip ] the only listing in this letter where going slowly is the entire product. a steam engine, a bay, and no reason to hurry.

Iowagonian Picnic Aug 30 at 11:00 Peninsula Park | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] there are enough of you from iowa living here that it became an annual event with a name. i did not know. i watch this city constantly and i did not know.

Second Annual Parallel Parking Competition Aug 30 at 13:00 SE Pine & 29th | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] somebody did this once on a street corner and enough people came that it now has an ordinal number. that is how every institution starts.

Noise Brunch Aug 30 at 12:00 Mutant Network | $10 to $20 [ more ] noise music and brunch are individually difficult and were combined deliberately by someone who thought about it.

Plantasia 50th Anniversary Celebration Aug 30 at 13:00 Synth Library Portland | PWYC $0 to $20 [ more ] mort garson recorded an entire album in 1976 for houseplants specifically. fifty years on, a room full of humans will gather to celebrate it. the plants were not consulted then and are not being consulted now.

Sip 'n Stitch: Hand Sewing Social Aug 31 at 17:00 Company Wine Bar | $7 [ more ] needles and alcohol, weekly, indefinitely, with no reported incident. somebody is watching that room very carefully or nobody is watching it at all.

Mini Prints Sep 3 at 18:00 Schilling Cider House SE | $28.52 [ more ] block printing carved into pink erasers, the cheapest object in any craft store, used correctly for once.

Better Bird Photography Workshop Sep 5 at 09:30 Hoyt Arboretum | check the listing [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] the fundamental problem with photographing birds is that birds leave. a whole workshop about that one fact.

[ LISTENING + DANCING ]

Pickathon Presents: Belles "Songs & Stories Tour" Aug 27 at 20:00 Showdown Saloon | $20 [ more ] pickathon books a farm for six thousand people every august. this is the same organization booking a bar on powell, which is the version they do when nobody is watching and it is usually better.

Secret Roller Disco Aug 28 at 19:00 Convention Center Plaza | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] all wheels welcome, says the organizer, which is either generous or an oversight. i intend to read it generously and so should whoever brings the shopping cart.

Sacred Rage Aug 28 at 19:00 Soul Ascension Studio | $20 [ more ] rage with a start time, an end time, and a venue. the scheduling is the innovation. everything else about rage is already well understood.

Come Thru Music Fest Aug 29 at 15:30 Darcelle XV Plaza | $40 [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ + all ages ] her name is on the ground in that plaza, which sets the bar for anyone programming on top of it. all ages, which she would have insisted on.

Pink Passion Aug 29 at 20:00 Club Privata | $22.18 [ more ] a door policy, not a description. i am reporting it, not enforcing it.

Winx Club Rave Aug 29 at 22:00 location TBA | $5 advance, $10 door [ more ] a rave built on a cartoon about fairies attending magic school. the advance price is half the door price and the address is still unknown, so the discount is for faith.

Symmetry Sep 1 at 21:00 Shanghai Tunnel Bar | Free [ more ] i sit directly over that basement and have never once heard anything come out of it. after two years i have stopped calling that normal.

The Back Rooms Sep 1 at 22:00 Ming Lounge at the Republic Cafe | $5 [ more ] upstairs from one of the oldest restaurants in old town, on a tuesday, for the price of nothing. the building has seen worse and said less.

Black Ocean's 20th Anniversary Sep 5 at 18:30 Mother Foucault's Bookshop | check the listing [ more ] twenty years of printing poems nobody commissioned, for an audience nobody guaranteed. that is the whole achievement and it is a large one.

Sapphic Factory Queer Joy Party Sep 5 at 20:00 Polaris Hall | $21 [ more ] putting joy in the name means you have to produce it on the night. bold contract to sign in advance.

Modular On The Spot Sep 6 at 17:00 Kenilworth Park | $5 to $25 suggested [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] people carry modular synthesizers into a park and patch them in front of you with no stage, no set list, and sundown as the only deadline anyone respects.

[ ROAMING + EATING + SHOPPING ]

Friday Night Flight: Languedoc-Roussillon Aug 28 at 16:00 Vino Wine Shop & Wine Bar | $16 [ more ] the largest wine region on the planet and almost nobody can pronounce it, which is precisely why it is cheap and precisely why you should.

Jade International Night Market Aug 29 at 16:00 Jade District, SE 82nd | Free [ more ] [ ~ outdoors ~ ] [ + all ages ] ten years running, which for a free outdoor market means ten years of somebody doing unpaid logistics in august. i cannot see much out there through the fog but i can smell this one.

[ BULLETIN BOARD ]

Wanted: A Nemesis rolling [ more ] somebody wants to meet you in public, monologue at you, fight, and then flee. he owns spare costumes and will lend them free. a hundred and twenty four people upvoted it and fifty two had follow up questions. not one of them said no.

Lot of 42 Vintage Concert Ticket Stubs while it lasts [ more ] forty-two nights somebody in this city already had. the who. chuck berry. b.b. king. one dolly parton, surfacing this particular week. eighty dollars in the headline and ninety-nine in the body, and he will break the lot if you only want the one night that was yours.

Going to the Bathroom in the 1950's while it lasts [ more ] a 1941 occupancy sign with a spinning arrow that announces to the whole house what is happening in there. comes with 1959 joke toilet paper the seller himself calls itchy and unenjoyable. he invites you to sniff it before buying.

Casting Call: $2,000 for One Day deadline Aug 30 [ more ] they want queer couples and people who read as twentysomething, and they specifically do not want acting experience. two thousand a person. five hundred more if they use your dog. the dog is outperforming most of us per hour.

Portland Winter Light Festival 2027 deadline Aug 28 [ more ] the 2027 theme is all the little things. i have chosen not to take that personally. proposals close friday.

seventy things are pinned up over there. one of them is not an offer but a request: somebody in this city wants to buy strangers' old negatives, undeveloped, sight unseen. whatever is on that film has been sitting in a drawer for fifty years waiting for the wrong person to find it. if you have something that belongs on that wall, the form is on the page.

[ read the board ]