ILLUSTRATION: Lloyd Eugene Winter IV
It's summer in Portland, that time of year when we pack up our lawn chairs and head outside to watch a movie in a graveyard.
What's that, you say? Movies don't belong in graveyards? This one does: Ivy Lin's documentary Come Together Home tells the story of the Chinese railroad workers buried in Lone Fir Cemetery, and how their disinterred bones were placed where they don't belong, marooned in a Hong Kong warehouse. The remains were dug up en masse from Lone Fir's Block 14 and shipped to China in 1949, when Multnomah County wanted the cemetery land for a highway department maintenance yard. Sixty years later, Lin traveled across the Pacific Ocean to find out where the bones finally rested.
"I just feel really connected with that block, for some reason," says Lin. "I would just aim my camera to it, and think about the sad story of my ancestors. Not only did they work so hard during their lifetime, but after they died their bones were dug up and some county building was built on top, and then their bones were shipped to Hong Kong, in limbo for like 11 years. It just really grabbed me. And then a lot of people who live in the neighborhood don't even know what's going on with that empty land. I mean, there's a bus stop on the corner."
On Saturday night, the land becomes a movie theater. "I just can't wait," Lin says. "It will be such an incredible experience…to see a cemetery movie in a cemetery."
GO: Come Together Home screens Saturday, July 24, at Lone Fir Cemetery, on the corner of Southeast 26th Avenue and Stark Street. City Commissioner Nick Fish will dedicate a Heritage Tree at 6 pm; the film begins at 9 pm. Free.
Headout Picks
WEDNESDAY JULY 21
[MUSIC]
Hey, remember when you made that mixtape for your high school crush that featured four different Postal Service songs? The Foreign Exchange also communicates via email, only it does hip-hop and R&B better than Ben Gibbard could ever dream of.
THURSDAY JULY 22
[DRINK]
Craft beer enthusiasts have four days to sample 81 beers or go on a weekend bender to try them all.
[OPERA?] THE BARBER OF BRIDGETOWN
Electric Opera Company's updated take on Rossini's Barber of Seville features an orchestra of "12 electric guitars, four synthesizers and one gigantic drum kit." Scottish Rite Center, 1512 SW Morrison St., electricoperacompany.com. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, 2 pm Sunday, July 22-23 and 25. $15.
FRIDAY JULY 23
[MUSIC]
Does your knowledge of reggae extend beyond putting a poster of Bob Marley in your dorm room freshman year? Finally, an excuse to get high at the zoo.
SATURDAY JULY 24
[FOOD]
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to conquer the mighty Foghorn, a 22-scoop ice cream behemoth served in half a watermelon.
SUNDAY JULY 25
[SCREEN]
Wong's loosely connected trilogy of lovesick 1960s period pieces—
(3 pm),
(5 pm) and
(7 pm)—are almost too crushingly gorgeous to bear.
TUESDAY JULY 27
[MUSIC]
Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner could shit in a bag and we'd still listen to it.
WWeek 2015