Arts & Books We don't usually bother mentioning every time the Grey Lady writes an article about Portland, but this one is worthy of note:Back in August last year, we got wind that someone from the Times was in town working on an article about Portland's karaoke scene. [Edit 1/19: Dan Kois was here in March 2012.] We decided to pip them at the post (because we're mature like that) by sending future U of O ...   More

Culture A bespectacled man stands in the back corner of the dimly lit stage, about five feet from the stripper pole. Nervously tapping the microphone against the white cast holding his right arm in place,   More

Drink The Spare Room—as its name helpfully implies—was once a bowling alley, but has become in the meantime the cavernous clearinghouse for every single old, true, good feeling of the Killingsworth-Fremont district, a repository for the contentedly lost and literary-articulate America that Tom Waits always sang about.   More

Drink  Yen Ha Lounge would maybe be just a poor man’s acetone-stiff-drink dive bar—which it is, anyway, in the daytime—were it not for some serious perks.   More

News What goes best with face-melting 100+ degree temperatures? Deep fried grub and off-key tunes, of course. Tonight marks the inaugural session of the Hawthorne Cart Village's "Foodkartaroke." Which is exactly what it sounds like. Fried pie man and Twitter addict Gregg Abbott over at Whiffie's Fried Pies has been tweeting about the song-party all week—begging for a PA (he found one) ...   More