NEW OREGON URBAN DEVELOPMENT NIGHT

NOISwebbanner AN EVENING OF CONVERSATION ON PORTLAND’S BUILT ENVIRONMENT
HOST NORA ROBERTSON WITH MAYOR SAM ADAMS, BRAD CLOEPFIL AND RANDY GRAGG
MON, FEB 22ND, 2010

CityPlanningWEB

The New Oregon Interview Series brought Mayor Sam Adams, Portland Monthly editor Randy Gragg and prominent architect Brad Cloepfil together to discuss their work in shaping urban space and how our built environment is evolving on February 22nd at Urban Grind East. Since becoming Vera Katz’ chief of staff, Mayor Adams has served as council liaison to the Regional Arts & Culture Council and as lead council member on Arts and Culture, Economic Development and Transportation, instrumental in transit-oriented development such as the aerial tram and bike boxes, urban design of developments such as SW Waterfront, and arts outreach such as Art Spark, RACC’s Installation Art Series in the Portland Building and a new initiative for building Portland metro area’s creative capacity, ACT for ART. Architect/principal of Allied Works Architecture, Cloepfil’s projects have included the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the redesign of NYC’s Museum of Arts & Design at historic 2 Columbus Circle, and the Portland offices of Wieden + Kennedy. A Harvard Loeb Fellow and Columbia National Arts Journalism Fellow, Randy Gragg was the Oregonian’s architecture critic for eighteen years and is currently Portland Monthly’s editor-in chief, as well as organizing the Halprin fountain plazas music/dance performance, “City Dance”, Bullseye Glass’ architect-in-residence programs, and the 2003 art exhibition, “Core Sample”, involving over 30 shows and installations throughout downtown Portland.

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More | December 18th, 2010 | No Comments »

NEW OREGON INTERVIEW SERIES FOOD NIGHT

NOISwebbanner Naomi Pomeroy HOST NORA ROBERTSON WITH GREG HIGGINS, MATT LOUNSBERRY AND NAOMI POMEROY

The New Oregon Interview Series brought three prominent Portland food artisans together for an evening of intimate conversation. Higgin’s Restaurant chef/owner Greg Higgins, Stumptown director Matt Lounsbury and Beast chef/owner Naomi Pomeroy sat down to discuss their work and how our food culture is evolving on October 26th at Urban Grind East. Previously launching family supper, ripe catering, clarklewis and Gotham Tavern, Pomeroy opened the doors to Beast in 2007 and quickly garnered awards as one of Bon Appetit’s 2008 top six female chefs, Food and Wine Magazine’s 2009 top ten chefs in America and a James Beard Award for Best Chef semi-finalist for the Northwest.. As operations director for Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Lounsberry oversees markets in Portland, Seattle and New York and direct trade with growers on three continents. After stints in Alsace, Burgundy and Sun Valley, Greg Higgins was executive chef at the Heathman Hotel for almost a decade before he opened the influential Higgins’ Restaurant, appearing on Martha Steward and PBS’ New American Cuisine and receiving the James Beard Foundation 2002-2003 Best Chef Award for the Northwest.

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More | November 29th, 2010 | No Comments »

Portrait at Drowning Rat, 2008

I keep about 5000 messages in my email box going back about two years because I am lazy, and every once in a while I get the urge to go through the really old ones.  It’s like looking at old letters.  I found this portrait Steve Fritz took of me at a Drowning Rat two years ago when I was just getting over my divorce.  My friend Tiffany Lee Brown has been organizing these events just east of Eugene for a lot of years.  Drowning Rat is kind of an Oregonian answer to Burning Man.  It’s rainforest instead of desert, and a moss rat that gets thrown in the river instead of burned, and it’s really small and private.  The deal with the rat is it’s a way to let go of things.  I have a whole sequence of photos I’ll write up some time about what I did that weekend to get rid of my wedding dress.  My wedding dress sort of haunted me after my divorce. I had had it preserved in a vacuum-sealed box with a plastic display window.  I didn’t know what to do with it.  So finally I gave part of it to Tiffany for her wedding dress she was having designed, the good part with the nice beading and heavy silk, and destroyed the rest.  Above is me when I’ve gotten dressed up for the party as a kind of Gilligan’s Island Ginger type girl and am totally relieved somehow by my throwing the ashes of my dress in the river.  It meant a lot to me, that dress, at the time.  It’s weird but these ritualistic things that I usually am put off by do actually work sometimes.  Below is me having my way with the dress, getting rid of it for better or for worse.

More | November 8th, 2010 | No Comments »

The Body Show Benefit: B. Frayn Masters

Need some advice on how to groom “down there”?  Check out some fresh ideas in this illustration from “The Pubic Zone.”  Back Fence producer and one half of all-girl comedy duo Eastland Academy, B. Frayn writes for Girls Gone Wild magazine under the name of Cherry Daniels, a 22-year-old co-ed.  See if she gets up to similar shenanigans at Wednesday’s The Body Show Benefit.  Someday Lounge, door at 7PM, 7:30-9:30PM, $5-15 donation.

More | November 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

The Body Show Benefit: Raffle Prizes and More

I was really excited to pick up the raffle donations on Saturday: a big pink salt block and six-jar starter salt kit from The Meadow, two antique pitcher filled with fresh free-range duck eggs from Pistils Nursery, a $20 gift certificate from female-friendly sex toy boutique Shebop, and five David Delamare prints from Bad Monkey Productions as well as their erotic cabaret card set.  Raffle tickets will be sold at a dollar each, proceeds going to benefit post-production costs of the film.

And for the winner of the Voodoo Doughnut contest, a $25 gift certificate from Blackbird Wines and a trophy!

More | November 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

Bathing Beauties

A swimsuit show featuring the Mercury’s Allison Hallett and Marjorie Skinner, novelist Monica Drake, Portland Monthly Culturephile writer Anne Adams, author and dancer Viva las Vegas, your humble reporter Nora Robertson, and many more bathing beauties will open Popina Swimwear’s new location in the Pearl on Thursday, Nov. 4th, bevvies by New Deal, Hip Chick Do Wine and Kona Brewing, cupcakes by Cupcake Jones, nail changes by Studio Luxe, 6-9PM, 318 NW 11th, FREE.

More | October 27th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

The Body Show Benefit: Brad Fortier

Brody Theater’s Brad Fortier recently was invited to Amsterdam to give a talk on the Anthropology of Improvisation for the 2010 Applied Improvisation Network conference. Besides being somewhat jealous of his being in Europe, where they serve fries with mayonnaise, I also was super intrigued by his interview on the anthropological roots of improvisation.

Brad is something of an anthropologist, in fact. Brad holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Portland State University focused on the anthropology of improvised theater. His book, Long-Form Improvisation: Collaboration, Comedy and Communion, is a social science analysis of, well, long-form.

As an anthropologist, Brad bounces between doing archaeological contract work for WillametteCRA and continuing his ethnographic studies of improvised theater. His performance career has included shows in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia. He is also known for his duo work with Fort Hal and Uncle Trouble with comedy partner Nate Halloran. Brad can also be found onstage with Icarus and, occasionally, FunnybusinessPDX. He is the Education Director for the Brody Theater in Portland, where he has been teaching since 1998. Brad has also directed several shows for the Brody Theater: The Bards-an improvised musical, Generic Hospital – an improvised soap opera, and Starhole 3060. He also directed “SexyNurd” in Portland’s 2010 ‘Fertile Ground’ Festival of new works.

For more of Brad’s work, check out his collaboration below with director Alden Morgan, or, on a more frivolous note, come see him eat doughnuts stylishly for the Body Show Benefit’s Voodoo doughnut eating contest, Wednesday, Nov. 3rd, Someday Lounge, door at 7PM, 7:30-9:30PM, $5-15 donation.

The Last Laugh from Alden Morgan on Vimeo.

More | October 25th, 2010 | No Comments »

The Body Show Benefit: Gigi Little

A woman decides to jump naked out of a cake to surprise her husband for their anniversary, and quickly ends up baking hundreds of sheet cakes. Gigi Little’s writing has appeared in the anthologies Portland Noir and The Pacific Northwest Reader, and she has written and illustrated two children’s picture books, Wright Vs. Wrong and The Magical Trunk. She works as In-Store Merchandising and Promotions Coordinator for Powell’s, and before moving to Portland, she spent fifteen years in the circus. To hear more of this story, check out Gigi at the Body Show Benefit, Nov. 3rd, door at 7PM, 7:30-9:30PM, $5-15 donation.

EXCERPT

I never thought I’d be the kind of person who’d like frosting a cake in the nude.  But, oh, I do.  First is the smell of the sugar all around.  Then there’s the way it feels.  Trust me, if you think running a knife along frosting is kind of sensual, try doing it with nothing but air against your skin.

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More | October 21st, 2010 | No Comments »

Daylight Dapper, Portland Monthly

More | October 17th, 2010 | No Comments »

Skateboarders Outside

The Glenhaven skate park is very close to my house. Late last August, I was sitting on my back patio and I heard this loud creaking sound like a screen door.  I thought maybe someone was standing in the front pushing the broken doorbell, so I came out the front with my glass of red wine and found a couple guys skating over the top of the bench I sometimes see an old lady from across the courtyard rest on while walking her grey tabby cat on a little neon nylon leash.

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More | October 16th, 2010 | No Comments »