Get Inside: Nine Things to Do This Week While Stuck at Home

Walk with dinosaurs, stream Waxahatchee and gaze upon your busted bracket and despair.

(OMSI)

GO: Dinosaurs Revealed

Like Jim Morrison, Crystal Pepsi and the XFL, the dinosaurs died young, and thus will never get old. Every properly raised child still goes through a period of obsession with prehistoric creatures, and any adult who grows tired of gazing at massive animatronic versions of them might as well take a long, slow walk out into the ocean. OMSI's new exhibit offers up the classic museum dino experience: 25 lifesized re-creations of the big-name beasts, plus displays of real-life fossils and other geological ephemera. If you're older than the age of, say, 5, you've likely seen this kind of thing before, but after a year of staring our own collective mortality in the face, you might view the concept of extinction in a whole different light. OMSI, 1945 SE Water Ave., omsi.edu. Through Sept. 6. $8-$12, free for OMSI members.

STREAM: Single Pink Klaud

Portland choreographers Linda Austin and Allie Hankins have always pushed the boundaries of dance, so it's no surprise they continue to create abstract, idiosyncratic work during the pandemic. Austin and Hankins' collaborative, virtual piece is inspired by surrealism and attempts to grapple with our strange, liminal existence over the past year. Performance Works Northwest, pwnw-pdx.org. 7:30 pm Friday-Sunday, March 26-28.

WATCH: March Madness

After getting COVID'd last year, it's once again that time of year when millions of Americans gather together to do some light gambling on the fortunes of a bunch of teenagers who aren't getting paid anything at all. But hey, if you can put aside the corruption of the NCAA and simply enjoy the symphony of bricked threes and missed point-blank layups, then this is truly the greatest sporting event of the year. We kid! Sort of. Anyway, by the time you read this, it'll be the Sweet Sixteen and your bracket will likely be busted, but maybe Oregon State's Cinderella story will still be ongoing, giving us all something to root for even if you're dead last in your virtual office pool. Streams at ncaa.com/march-madness-live/watch.

WATCH: Irma Vep

Maggie Cheung stars as a semi-fictionalized version of herself: a Chinese movie star on location in Paris to shoot a remake of the 1915 silent film Les Vampires, despite the fact she doesn't speak French. Directed by Olivier Assayas, this 1996 French New Wave-inspired drama delves into motifs of alienation, identity and the fine line between fantasy and reality. Streams on Criterion Channel and HBO Max.

CATCH UP ON: Superstore

Historically, television shows have reacted to the loss of primary characters with varying levels of success: Cheers carried on without a hitch after Shelley Long departed, whereas The Office probably should have called it quits once Steve Carell left. Count NBC's Superstore among the sitcoms whose quality did not diminish following the exit of America Ferrera last year. That's a testament to the talented and diverse cast playing the hilariously flawed employees of St. Louis big box store Cloud 9. Like any good workplace comedy, this one finds humor in gathering together people who wouldn't normally associate and then observing them trying to get along. Shoppers are largely relegated to the background, except during one of the show's best features: the customer interstitial, in which we see everything from a grown man using a display toilet to a child destroying the dishware section. If you haven't caught on to this underrated sitcom, now's a good time—the series finale airs March 25. Streams on Hulu and Peacock.

HEAR: There’s a Riot Goin’ On by Sly & the Family Stone

Sly & the Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On, the best funk album ever made, turns 50 this year. Sly Stone's self-loathing portrait of a politically apathetic coward numbing himself through times of turmoil ("feels so good, don't wanna move") is expressed through guttural shrieks that foreshadow both the hieroglyphics of Young Thug and Playboi Carti and the early 2020s' struggle between staying woke and staying sane. Stream on Spotify.

WATCH: Moxie

The latest film directed by multihyphenate Amy Poehler, Moxie is a coming-of-(r)age teen dramedy adapted from Jennifer Mathieu's eponymous novel about the positive power of punk. Hadley Robinson plays Vivian, a shy teen who's sick and tired of the ingrained misogyny she and the other girls at her high school are forced to endure daily. After Vivian discovers her mother (Poehler) was a third-wave feminist in the '90s, she taps her knowledge about riot grrrl music and culture. That inspires the creation of a rebellious zine called MOXIE!, which Vivian distributes in the girls' bathrooms at school. And since you can't make a riot grrrl movie without paying homage to the Pacific Northwest, the story is set around Portland. Eagle-eyed Oregonians will spot the Umpqua Dairy stickers on Vivian's laptop, University of Oregon memorabilia in the classrooms, and the implausibility of the students attending an outdoor high school. (In this climate? As if!) Streams on Netflix.

WATCH: Waxahatchee Livestream

Released a year ago this week, Waxahatchee's Saint Cloud became an accidental quarantine soundtrack. An album about the joys and sorrows of just trying to get yourself through the day, there's no way the musician born Katie Crutchfield could have known how appropriate it would sound, but the twangy, textured songs felt tailor-made for the time: Crutchfield sings about taking walks to pull herself out of a rut, wilting flowers that mark the passing of time, and hard-won optimism. A year after the pandemic canceled Waxahatchee's Saint Cloud tour, Crutchfield and her band will play the album in its entirety from a venue in Kansas. 7 pm Saturday, March 27. Tickets via Wonder Ballroom, wonderballroom.com. $15.

STREAM: Ancient Recipes With Sohla

Hosted by Sohla El-Waylly, the History Channel's new YouTube series is a deep dive into the tangled international history of food. Not only is the series full of fun facts—did you know the origins of pizza can be traced back to sixth century BCE Persia, or that pre-colonial Aztec tacos were cooked without any fat?—but it's also deeply entertaining to watch El-Waylly attempt to cook with ancient utensils, whether it's an usu from feudal Japanese or a giant sword. Sure, you're probably never going to cook pizza on a Persian soldier's shield, and watching other people pound rice into mochi is enough to make your own arms tired. But El-Waylly's sense of humor about each inconvenient process is infectious, and the fact that the recipes are never perfectly planned only adds to the series' charm. Plus, it doubles as reassurance that even professional chefs struggle through new recipes. Streams on YouTube. New episodes every Saturday.

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