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October 11, 2019
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
After my week in Oklahoma I'm so glad to be back in Portland. One day last week in OKC, it was 97 degrees with a heat index of almost 110. Little wonder that the grass and trees are brown, and life is lived inside under artificially cooled air. I feel lucky to live here surrounded by the beauty of the Pacific NW. Here where there's water and it's green and the weather is reasonable and I get to sleep under a comforter. More than anything, however, I'm glad to be back at work, and I feel thankful to be loved and supported by the Clinton Street community.
I told you last week I would start getting rid of stuff, and the purge has begun. I'm amazed at how much waste I create without even realizing that I'm doing it. In traveling through Nicaragua and Mexico, I've seen how folks with almost nothing can repurpose everything. And I've seen that most often the repurposed items celebrate art, color, beauty.
When I trained with Women Walk the Marathon, we ended all of our meetings with "I am an Athlete." Saying this out loud was difficult for many of us. I, for one, had never considered myself an athlete--mostly because I had an idea in my head of what an athlete looked like, and that image certainly didn't look like me. The same goes for "I am a writer," "I am an artist," or "I am an activist." It's not because I don't write, create art, or fight for all manner of causes, but because of self-criticism. I don't believe that I merit claiming those attributes (writer, artist, activist), because I don't perform any of those endeavors well enough or I haven't done them long enough.
Just another example of waste--it's wasted time and energy on self-doubt and indecisiveness.
Well, I'm not going to get much done thinking like that. Recently I read a great article about a city in Kyrgyzstan that has repurposed tires (they have an abundance) into dozens of sculptures of anything from a lady bug to a giraffe to a 4-foot cartoon figure.
What would it look like if we didn't live in a throw-away society? What could we create if we didn't judge ourselves all the time?
Weep Holes
Andrea Cohen
We build these
into the dream-
house, holes drilled
into window sills,
so rainy days
drain out. No
dream’s complete
without looking
ahead, without
seeing ourselves
looking back
at who—
dreaming—
we’d been.
WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS WEEK
BENEATH THE RAWNESS
Presented by Whisper Skin Theatre
Friday, Oct 11, Saturday, Oct 12 & Sunday, Oct 13 @ 8:00pm
Dare You Sojourn Through The RAWNESS Of Things With WHISPER SKIN THEATRE?
Whisper Skin is a troupe of women that write, direct, and perform provocative and poetic, surrealist dramas focusing on women’s experiences, voices, and truths.
Join us as they perform Haunting, Provocative, Cathartic, Original Surrealist dramas centered around the womenfolk experience. Crisscross the caverns of the human psyche. Gather stories from the past and present and give voice to the voiceless. Ten original surrealist dramas, written by five women-identified playwrights from ALL walks of life, traversing grief, trauma, motherhood, love, hauntings, forest spirits, other worldly beings, myth, loss of identity, reclaiming of self, and courage.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at the door, with a limited number of $5 ARTS 4 ALL tickets also offered at the door.
BRAZIL
Monday, Oct 14 @ 7:00pm. FREE Movie!! Please consider making a donation to our nonprofit partner, Sail 2 Change.
Terry Gilliam's 1985 film is a surrealist nightmare of a low-level bureaucrat in a dismal world of the near future.
It's like a stoned, slapstick 1984: a nightmare comedy in which the comedy is just an aspect of the nightmarishness.
Pauline Kael, New Yorker
Tonight's nonprofit partner is Sail 2 Change, a nonprofit organization inspired to support our nation's underserved youth by providing tools for personal growth, while simultaneously creating an understanding of responsible recreation, sustainability, and the ecological complexities of the natural world.
ROAD TO BALI
Presented by Public Domain Xinema
Tuesday, Oct 15 @ 7:00pm. $5-8 suggested donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.
A light-hearted musical comedy and one of the better "Road To" movies featuring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope delivering one-liners and Hollywood inside jokes. Harold (Bob Hope) and George (Bing Crosby) are two vaudeville performers in Australia. After they realize their local gal pals intend to marry them, they sign up for a diving expedition led by the local island prince, Ken Arok (Murvyn Vye). They soon meet the prince's sister, Lalah (Dorothy Lamour), who rules a beautiful island. When their dive uncovers a jewel-filled chest, Ken tries to steal both the treasure and Lalah's throne, and the trio is forced into hiding.
PENDA'S FEN
Presented by Church of Film
Wednesday, Oct 16 @ 8:00pm. $5-8 suggested donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Young Stephen, the son of a country Priest, doesn't quite fit in. Bullied at school, very awkward, obsessed with the music of Elgar, deeply conservative in his views of God and Country, and also deeply confused about his own sexual desires... None of which is helped by that fact that he lives in Pinvin, a small village that may be the resting grounds of England's last pagan king, Penda, or the grounds of some bizarre modern day military experiments. Blending striking visions and dream sequences into a folk horror melange of ghosts, politics and sexuality, Alan Clarke's PENDA'S FEN was immediately hailed in the UK as a complex modern masterpiece.
COMING SOON
ERASERHEAD, October 21; BEETLEJUICE, October 28; DEATH BECOMES HER, November 4; KUNG FU HUSTLE, November 11; TREMORS, November 25; THIS IS SPINAL TAP, December 2; HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS, December 9; THE DARK CRYSTAL, December 16.
Mother, they're still not sure it is a baby!
Projekt Records' "Movies in the Dark" presents ARMY OF DARKNESS October 18 @ 10pm. "Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness delivers a great conclusion to what is one of the most unique trilogies in cinema history, providing a ton of laughs and plenty of exciting action in the process." -- Jeff Beck, The Blu Spot. Tickets AVAILABLE NOW.
The Forest Climate Revue on Saturday, October 19th is part variety show, part forest ecology night, and part training for a resurgence of forest defense! Come for report-backs from the Forests for Climate Resilience action camp, and from the North American Forest & Climate Movement Convergence. We will also have live music, film, performance and art!
Portland Film Community presents a night of Comedy Short Films and Local Standup Comedians. Featuring Portland Mercury's 2019 Geniuses of Comedy Tory Ward & Wendy Weiss. Hosted by Rochelle Love and Scott Thomas.
ORAEYC presents NO SMALL MATTER on October 23 & 24 @ 7pm. NO SMALL MATTER confronts America's most pressing problems with an unlikely but powerful weapon: babies and young children. This is a free community event.
It's never too early to get your tickets for our ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW Halloween Extravaganza!! These shows sell out every year!! Come be part of our Halloween fun!!
Halloween brings out the best in spooky, gory entertainment. Join us for these indie treats: HOLIDAY HELL on Saturday/Sunday, October 26-27 @ 2pm; BEYOND THE WALL OF FEAR, Saturday, October 26 @ 5pm; and CANDY CORN Wednesday, October 30 @ 6:30pm.
We've got something else I'm unable to list by name coming on October 30 @ 8pm (with a pre-movie talk by local critics), but maybe you can guess what it is. What do Pacific NW, Nicolas Cage, Revenge and Motorcycles have in common?
And don't forget about GuignolFest! The 11th annual horror filmmaking competition is Sunday, October 27th at 8pm.
FLASH AH-AHHHH!: A Stageworks Ink Production is coming in November!!! This is the fifth anniversary of this unique and hilarious production. Several of the original cast and crew are returning for this final bow for Flash Ah-Ahhh!! Including most of the original band who were ages 13 to 17 and students at the School of Rock. TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW!!!
You say you want more FLASH GORDON???!!! On Saturday, November 16, come to a 4pm matinee of the 1980 feature film. Or make it a three-fer....the movie, a gala reception with food and drink specials, and a ticket to Flash Ah-Ahhh....all for only $25.
Submissions are closed, but because of my father's death and my inability to properly promote the festival, PUFF has been postponed until January.
For Lovers of the Strange and Unusual. . . For the first time . . . The Portland Oddities & Curiosities Expo! Saturday, October 19th.
Friend of the Clinton, Amy Bugbee, is hosting a Pie Cookbook Launch & Pie Art Show at the East Creative Collective on Friday, November 1st. Yum!!! Pie!!!!
Listen, Learn, Lead Event #8: NASTY Night Out is Sunday, November 10th. Come for shoulder/neck massages, henna artists, a jazz band, a swear word/resistance coloring station (very therapeutic), a photo booth, pizza, snacks, and more.
The publication of my memoir UNFIT: The Tale of One Pregnant Teen in the Time Before Roe v Wade has been postponed until December. If you would like to be on a list for presale announcements, please contact me directly at ljleigh@northcountry.com.
Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else.
— Fred Rogers
Don't be a stranger. Come see us soon.
Kind regards,
Lani Jo
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