Skip to main content- DOWN UNDERWORLD: Big names in the Aussie theater world were in town Saturday night for the premiere of the co-production of A Long Day’s Journey Into Night from Australia’s Sydney Theatre Company and PDX’s Artists Repertory Theatre. It wasn’t hard to pick the out-of-towners—an opening night in Sydney is wall-to-wall monkey suits, while Portlanders, including lead actor William Hurt, prefer a more socks-and-sandals aesthetic. With promised VIP and STC artistic director Cate Blanchett nowhere to be seen, her husband and director Andrew Upton and the group of renowned Australian theatre artists, including Robyn Nevin and her partner, actor Nicholas Hammond (The Sound of Music, The Amazing Spider-Man and, er, General Hospital), apparently weren’t famous enough to gain entry to the Departure post-show. Fortunately, they were welcomed with open arms at Scandals.
- BOOKWORM WIN! This week, the boast that Portland is big into books is backed up with cold, hard facts. According to the 2010 Public Library Data Service Statistical Report, Multnomah County Library patrons have “checked out and renewed more items than patrons of any other U.S. library serving fewer than 1 million residents.” And this is the eighth year in a row we’ve nabbed the top spot. The Public Library Association says MCL’s circulation of 22.7 million items last year is a new record for any U.S. library that serves under a million people.
- IT’S PERSONAL: The Thermals just wrapped filming for the first music video from the Portland trio’s forthcoming disc, Personal Life. The video, for the bouncy “I Don’t Believe You,” was shot by Whitey McConnaughy—the PDX director who got Red Fang to go LARPing and started a food fight at Voodoo Doughnut for Mudhoney. “It actually features [Sleater-Kinney alumn/NPR blogger] Carrie Brownstein (Pitchfork points!),” McConnaughy wrote WW. But the big names don’t stop there: “It even has a cameo from [Modest Mouse frontman] Isaac Brock (Pitchfork points times infinity),” McConnaughy says. The video also features the Thermals, of course, performing in a tin shed. When asked for spoilers, Thermals frontman Hutch Harris was succinct. “It plays out like an indie-rockstar version of Coppola’s The Conversationrdquo; he says.
- BAR BAR BAR: Cognito, the restaurant that was slated to fill half of the former It’s a Beautiful Pizza space on Belmont, is apparently kaput. Joshua Johnston, co-owner of Paddy’s Bar and Grill, has filed a liquor license application for the space under the name Outhouse. Also possibly coming soon: Hawthorne Hophouse, a beer bar in the Papa Murphy’s-anchored mini-mall on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, and Sunshine Tavern, at 3309 SE Division St.
WWeek 2015