Skip to main content
Each week our culture scientists rank their 10 favorite things in the universe. The resulting list is infallible. The list is perfect. If you don't agree with the list, you are wrong. Some items may stay atop the list for weeks, others may only make a brief appearance. Some items are Portland-centric, but only because Portland is at the center of the universe. Please do not write to us, asking for the metrics behind the list. We will not provide source material. We will not be swayed. Bow down to the list. Love the list, as the list loves all things. Let the list move through you. (And, you know, if you have suggestions for the list, stick them in the comments section below.)
1. Cherry blossoms in Tom McCall Waterfont Park
Suddenly the ride to work feels more like a party than a funeral.
2. Jeff Daniels is playing an arrogant asswipe again
He was the filet of arrogant asswipes in The Squid and the Whale. Now he's on HBO for Aaron Sorkin. He's still got it. We could listen to him ask "Yosemite?" all day.
Yeah, we're excited to know what our grandparents were up to just before the second World War.
4. Cersai Lannister bitch-slaps Joffrey
Game of Thrones is back, wahoo! With dragons! And infanticide!
5. Portland has food cart okonomiyaki
Apparently there is a roving okonomiyaki (those delicious japanese pancakes we wrote about after our return from Austin, Texas) operation in Portland called Domo Domo. It pops up at the Beaverton, Cully and OHSU Farmers Markets and is run by Sidney Ayers, who began making the delicacy after living in Japan for a couple of years. We are itching to try this stuff.
6. The costumes in Portland Playhouse's In the Red and Brown Water
Kathy Scoggins and Ramona Lisa interpreted the gritty-yet-magical tone of Tarell Alvin McCraney's play ingeniously, building mythic raiments from pieces you wouldn't be surprised to see on the street.
7. Deadspin finds a use for the Grantland Quarterly
If only destroying the hardcover could somehow destroy the worst thing ever published on the entire internet, Jane Leavy's profile of Babe Ruth's daughter.
9. Realizing Ted has exactly the same plot as The Muppets.
Jimmy Little is dead and that is NOT one of the top 10 things in Portland, nor the world, but if you don't know him, you should now:
WWeek 2015