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

Attend TechfestNW, watch the virtual Oregon Beer Awards and pray the Blazers win their first playoff game against the Nuggets.

The Beermonger IMAGE: Wesley Lapointe. (Wesley Lapointe)

Stream: Haley Heynderickx at Laurelthirst Pub

Laurelthirst Pub, Portland’s oldest music venue, is getting ready to welcome back guests for the first time in over a year, and they’ve booked one of the city’s favorite folk artists for a livestream that doubles as a reopening fundraiser. It’s been almost three years since Haley Heynderickx released her subtle but resonant debut, I Need to Start a Garden, and she’s mostly kept quiet since her national tour with the Milk Carton Kids was indefinitely postponed last year. If we’re lucky, maybe Heynderickx will debut some new tunes. Regardless, her bittersweet, layered folk will be an ideal match for an empty, intimate venue. 5 pm Thursday, May 20 via GCTV, boxoffice.mandolin.com. $15.

Stream: Oregon Beer Awards

The pandemic may have postponed the event known as the Oscars of the state’s craft brewing industry, but it couldn’t stop it from happening completely. Organizers of the WW-sponsored Oregon Beer Awards began planning ways to safely execute the double-blind judging process last summer. Eventually, adjudication sessions took place about three months later than normal with COVID-safety guidelines in place. And now, finally, we get to learn who takes home the highly coveted medals in 29 beer and 11 industry-voted categories. While there won’t be a rowdy, in-person ceremony this year, the show must go on in virtual form. Ticketholders can watch the winners revealed via Zoom, or you can join one of the many physically distanced watch parties that have been organized across the state. And we’re pretty sure at least one thing won’t change: The participants will be getting increasingly drunk. 5:30 pm Thursday, May 20. Tickets can be purchased on Eventbrite. $5.

Attend: TechfestNW

One of America’s premier cybersecurity reporters, the founder of a Eugene electric vehicle startup, an Oregon sex-tech disruptor, and the founder of a venture fund specifically for Black-founded startups will take the virtual stage for TechfestNW 2021, Portland’s annual gathering of entrepreneurs, innovators and investors. This year’s TFNW conference theme is “Emerge.” with an emphasis on redefining entrepreneurship, creating a more inclusive tech economy, and discovering new solutions as Oregon builds back from the COVID-19 pandemic. As in previous years, TFNW will finish with a pitch competition—but with a big change this year. TFNW is partnering with Oregon Entrepreneurs Network to produce a competition that is providing training to startups—and sending the winning company an angel investment up to $125,000. 9 am-4 pm Friday, May 21. $15 for Oregon Entrepreneurs Network members, $25 for the general public. See techfestnw.com for complete information.

Stream: Kingsley Album Release Show

From the very beginning, Kingsley has rejected easy categorization. A few years ago, the Portland indie-pop singer released two alternate versions of her EP, I Am Because I Am—the dance-remix version I Am Because I Dance and the stripped down, acoustic I Am Because I Feel. Kingsley’s next album, Crying on Holidays, promises to be a midpoint between those two moods. The album’s two glossy lead singles will make ideal crying-on-the-dance-floor anthems when clubs reopen. For now, though, they’re just as good for dancing alone in your room. 8 pm Friday, May 21 at twitch.tv/holoceneportland. Free, donations accepted.

Catch Up On: Rutherford Falls

It’s no exaggeration to call Peacock’s acclaimed comedy Rutherford Falls the first mainstream American TV series with multidimensional and distinct Indigenous perspectives—even if the titular town and the tribe at its core are fictional. Coming from the writers and producers of The Good Place and Brooklyn 99, the performances are winsome and playful across the board: Ed Helms stars alongside writer Jana Schmieding—a member of the Lakota tribe who grew up around Canby and Eugene—as close friends whose relationship is tested by a cultural conflict in their small hometown. Helms unsurprisingly excels as an earnest ignoramus, but Schmieding is the true revelation here, playing an excitable try-hard who can’t quite win her own community’s approval. Streaming on Peacock.

Watch: The Killing of Two Lovers

Robert Machoian’s family drama knows it’s freighted with a foreboding title, and violence looms immediately over this story of a freshly separated couple. The longer it takes for that title to come true, the more we nervously rifle through its possible meanings. Even so, The Killing of Two Lovers slips into an inquisitive mode, deeper than pure tension. It is largely a director’s showcase: Known mostly for short documentaries, Machoian concocts an internal universe of rage through sound design full of slamming doors and endless creaking. And the complex, uncut blocking of a key marital squabble against a high-desert horizon blends stark indie filmmaking with Edward Albee-esque theatrical instincts. Streaming on Amazon Prime, Cinema 21, Google Play and Vudu.

Hear: Out of the Blue by “Blue” Gene Tyranny

Progressive rock gets a bad rap for being technically dazzling at the expense of true emotion, but you wouldn’t make that mistake after hearing “Blue” Gene Tyranny’s Out of the Blue. Comprising two almost unbearably beautiful pieces (“Living a Double Life,” “Letter from Home”), one bona-fide banger (“For David K.”), and one bona-fide banger that’s also unbearably beautiful (“Next Time Might Be Your Time”), this 1978 stunner is deeply spiritual, empathetic, and awestruck by the possibilities of where we’re from and where we’re going. Streaming on Spotify.

Watch: Portland Trail Blazers vs. Denver Nuggets in Round 1 of the Western Conference Playoffs

So after all...that, the Blazers managed to avoid the play-in tournament and secure a playoff berth for the eighth straight year, the longest such streak in the NBA. (Suck it, The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor!) And who should they be meeting in the first round but the very team they just beat to get there, their old divisional rivals, the Nuggies of Denver. You remember the last time they met in the postseason, right? The four overtime game? Evan Turner’s middle finger? CJ going bonkers in Game 7 to send the Blazers to the Western Conference Finals? Yeah, that series. There will be blood—or at least a good chance Zach Collins calls Nikola Jokic a “chunky bitch” from the bench. 7:30 pm Saturday, May 22 on ESPN.

Stream: The Carlalogues

See Q&A here.


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