News The FBI invested a lot of time and money convincing a 19-year-old kid he could wreak firey havoc upon a crowd of thousands at Pioneer Courthouse Square. They could have saved the cash and taken him to the Holiday Ale Festival, where thousands of Portlanders get bombed every year at no cost to the federal government whatsoever. They would have to have made him a fake ID, though—the Fest is 21+ ...   More

News Deep in the FBI's 36-page criminal affidavit against Mohamed Osman Mohamud, there's a very strange passage that reveals another side of the 19-year-old Oregon State student who allegedly tried to bomb the Pioneer Courthouse Square holiday-tree lighting. He writes jihad poetry. On Nov. 4, the same day undercover FBI agents say they tested a bomb with Mohamud deep in the Lincoln County woods, ...   More

News Exactly three weeks after weathering an arson attack, the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center of Corvallis will gather for a peace solidarity rally at Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square this Sunday, Dec. 19 at 2 pm.The square, of course, was the location of analleged bomb plot late last month. The suspect in that case, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, occasionally attended the ...   More

Music End of the line, Jack. We're all danced out and now we just wanna listen to some dad rock and chill the hell out. That okay by you? Alright, then away we go for a few last diary entries from Shane Danaher, Ruth Brown, Aaron Mesh and myself, Casey Jarman. (All photos by Inger Klekacz) Pioneer Courthouse Square, 4:30 pm. Talkdemonic is playing to a standing audience of a couple hundred on the ...   More

News It's a very nice civic gesture for the Blazers to provide a live television broadcast in Pioneer Courthouse Square this afternoon. But the placement of the truck with the television: Not ideal. The sunshine, as you will note by watching KGW's live camera feed, is moving eastward across the square: Maybe this won't be a problem in 45 minutes. Maybe. Meanwhile, it's some pretty hilarious ...   More

News Call it the Packed House that Twitter Built. Call it Chappelle's Silent Show. Call it "the greatest show that almost happened." Call it whatever you want. Because the facts are these: At 10 minutes to 1 this morning, reclusive comedian Dave Chappelle appeared in Pioneer Courthouse Square, carrying a microphone and a 10-inch amplifier. And 4,000 people were waiting for him. "I don't know about ...   More

News There's consensus going around town today that last night's Dave Chappelle silent performance was a major letdown, since, you know, nobody could hear the man. For what it's worth, I think that's a cynical response to a rather thrilling little piece of online-generated serendipity. It wasn't anybody's idea of a good show. But what else were you doing with your Tuesday night that was so crucial? Did ...   More

News Small Metal Objects, by Australia's Back to Back Theater and playing through Saturday at TBA, is a bit of anomaly. There is no stage, for one thing, nor a theater. The company, city by city, finds new public spaces in which to hold their performances and makes an effort to relocate the body of the play into that of the city (though, of course--not to be helped--the players still all sport ...   More

News I have just returned from watching Back to Back Theatre's Small Metal Objects, the last show I'll be seeing at this year's TBA Festival. Both Matthew Korfhage and Jonanna Widner have already reviewed the show, in which four actors deal with a drug deal stymied by an existential crisis, and I have nothing substantive to add to their critiques of the play itself. It's well-written, -acted and -produced, ...   More