Skip to main contentCATCH UP ON: Sharp Objects
Now that there are no more new episodes of HBO’s addictive miniseries Mare of Easttown to look forward to each Sunday, we’ll have to get our crime drama fix elsewhere. This 2018 miniseries is easily the closest thing to Mare we have. Adapted from Gillian Flynn’s novel, it stars Amy Adams as a depressed journalist assigned to travel back to her hometown in Missouri to cover a gruesome murder. Familial trauma stemming from her domineering mother (Patricia Clarkson) soon emerges, as does an attraction to the detective solving the case (Chris Messina). Streams on Amazon Prime, HBO, HBO Max, Hulu, Vudu and YouTube.
GO: Rockin’ the Walk with Mood Beach
In the pantheon of weird-ass promotional tactics perpetrated by the Portland Pickles, a concert series doesn’t even register. But leave it to the city’s favorite collegiate wood bat baseball team—and its favorite indie label, Tender Loving Empire—to remind everyone what Portland is supposed to feel like. In this case, it’s eating a pickle on a stick under the blue sky of Lents while half-watching college kids knock some dingers out of the park, then grooving to the synthy good vibes of Portland’s own Mood Beach. The series continues on intermittent Fridays through August. Walker Stadium, 4727 SE 92nd Ave., portlandpicklesbaseball.com. 7:05 pm Friday, June 11. Ticket prices vary.
ATTEND: Record Store Day
It’s been a tough year for record stores. Really, it’s been a tough decade for physical music sales—which is exactly why Record Store Day was created. If you haven’t ever participated in the nationwide day of special releases and deals, there’s never been a better time. This week is the first of two Record Store Days this year (the second is in July). Big-name day one drops include Amy Winehouse remixes and, just in time for Pride Month, a deluxe version of Lady Gaga’s Chromatica. Portland has almost a dozen participating shops, including Music Millennium, which will be celebrating with a Portugal the Man album signing and free gelato if you buy an album. Saturday, June 12. See recordstoreday.com for participating stores.
DO: Albina Soul Walk
Despite the bougie bars that now fill the area, Albina was once a hub for soul, R&B, funk and jazz. From the 1960s through the ’80s, a string of venues hosted touring sets from legends like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, and launched the careers of local musicians. As part of this year’s Vanport Mosaic Festival, two local legends—Calvin Walker and Paul Knauls Sr.—will give a 1-mile walking tour of the neighborhood’s hidden musical history and a once-thriving scene that was pushed out by gentrification. The in-person tour is open to only 25 people, but if you don’t make the cut, a self-guided soundwalk will be available on the same day. North Tillamook Street and Vancouver Avenue, vanportmosaic.org. 10 am Saturday, June 12. Free.
EAT: Festa Italiana
Not to be confused with the festival of the same name that turned Pioneer Courthouse Square into a drunken European piazza every summer for decades, this Festa Italiana is a more intimate affair. The new Italian-inspired marketplace will offer everything from radicchio seeds from the mother country to hand-carved marzipan. And if any outlet is to be trusted to source high-quality ingredients, it’s event co-host Wellspent Market, the expansion of Jim Dixon’s distribution business Real Good Foods that supplied some of the city’s best restaurants for years. In addition to a pantry full of beautiful pastas, tomatoes and fresh produce available for purchase, you can find food and beverages to consume at the festival, too, including frozen treats from Pinolo Gelato and Sorbu Paninoteca’s Tuscan sandwiches—that way you don’t have to wait until you get home to dig in. Wellspent Market, 935 NE Couch St. 503-987-0828, wellspentmarket.com. Noon-6 pm Saturday, June 12. Free. Registration is recommended via Eventbrite.
LISTEN: Chemz/Dolphinz by Burial
Burial’s Chemz/Dolphinz EP is a return to steamy, urban Blade Runner blues from a producer whose recent work focused on rave nostalgia at the expense of sound design. The 12-minute first side is one of his most satisfying long-form experiments yet, at once an epic pop song and an environment made of creaking metal and acid rain. “Dolphinz,” meanwhile, situates the cries of the titular cetaceans within a sound world that seems too polluted for them to survive for much longer. Stream on Spotify.
WATCH: A Quiet Place Part II
While it’s tempting to predict that this lean sequel to John Krasinski’s surprise 2018 horror hit could be one of the cinematic summer’s first loud entries, suffocating silence is still the new film’s signature move. In Part II, shotgun-toting mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and her two children (Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe) continue their monklike eluding of audiophile aliens, while director Krasinski’s confidence with wide-open, Jurassic Park-inspired chases carry the taut action. Even if the sequel runs dangerously low on ideas to sustain 90 minutes, it’s hard to be peeved at PG-13 entertainment hoping only to showcase a family conquering fear through sensory puzzles. Screens at Bagdad, Cinema 21, Fox Tower, Living Room and other area theaters.
GO: Gaybaret! with Anna Sinatra
Nationally touring singer and comedian Anna Sinatra brings three shows to Portland—the first at Local Lounge on June 10—with Siren Theater’s Friday and Saturday shows including a supporting roster of Portland cabaret stars. Siren Theater, 315 NW Davis St. 7:30 pm Friday, June 11. $15. 21+.