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May 17, 2019
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
The latest headlines about the continued assaults on women's agency over our own bodies has had me in a bit of a funk. So this week, I will look for inspiration and role models.
Wangarĩ Muta Maathai, a Kenyan environmental activist, founded the Green Belt Movement, which has planted over 51 million trees in Kenya. In this video, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Maathai shares the story of a hummingbird--a small, insignificant hummingbird.
Every day we face new horrors committed against our communities, our planet's health and wellbeing, and our own lives and livelihood. With each of the adversities we encounter, we have a choice. We can stand on the sidelines, helpless and frozen with fear, or we can be like the hummingbird and do the best we can. Won't you join me in declaring "I will be a hummingbird?" Wangarĩ Maathai stood up to what seemed like insurmountable challenges all her life. Giving up was never an option. Her persistence in always doing her best has changed our world, and her spirit lives on in the millions of trees she helped plant.
For an added bit of inspiration, Melodysheep has a musical tribute to Robin Williams--SEIZE THE DAY!
Crossing
Jericho Brown
The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God
I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing
To cross back. I’m set
On something vast. It reaches
Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.
WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS WEEK
Tonight at 7pm join us for playwright/director/actor Justin Gauthier's one-man performance celebrating the book release of Hope Cry Laugh Die: A Guide To Surviving The 21st Century. Stand-up comedy, motivational speaking, and personal anecdotes come together to form a fast paced, one of a kind experience full of surprises. It's simultaneously thought provoking and entertaining from start to finish.
ONLY TWO SHOWS LEFT!! Tonight @ 10pm and tomorrow @ 8pm. Hans Christian Andersen's mermaid tale gets transported to 1990s Coos Bay, Oregon, where a former mermaid navigates a town undone by the spotted owl controversy and the clash of the fishing generation with the new male-dominated grunge music scene. Peppered with the magical, some distortion, ripped t-shirts, the most beautiful plastic castle, Rebekah Stiles's innovative choreography, and playwright Laura Christina Dunn's quirky humor, this play asks, how do we find agency in divisive times even when we have lost both voice and home? Tickets $15-25 sliding scale; Arts For All accepted at the door.
ANNA KARENINA MUSICAL is a spectacular, breathtaking, high-tech musical production based on the masterpiece by Leo Tolstoy. The musical’s characters struggle with overwhelming of love and betrayal, passion and duty, hope and desperation. Although almost a century and a half has passed since the time of the story, the events unfolding before the audience are gripping and touching in their timeless quality. Sunday, May 19 @ 11am. Tickets $10.
Pacific University 2019 Senior Screening
The Pacific University Media Arts department invites you to join them as we screen a years worth of hard work from 2019 senior film majors. All are welcome to attend this FREE event. Sunday, May 19 at 2pm.
 
This feature from The Virgin Suicides director, Sofia Coppola, offers a story of love and friendship blooming under unlikely circumstances. A faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.
"Lost in Translation revels in contradictions. It's a comedy about melancholy, a romance without consummation, a travelogue that rarely hits the road." Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
Monday, May 20 @ 7pm. The screening is FREE and we are taking donations for our nonprofit partner, Trash for Peace, whose Mission is to provide hands-on, creative experiences that encourage resilient communities, and whose vision is to empower healthy communities to live in a world without waste.
  
Fun! Fun! Fun! Some of the most fun you'll have sitting in a seat! The Invincible Czars make quirky, bold music for lovers of everything in the “other” category. Inspired by comics, sci-fi, fantasy & horror stories, cartoons, comedians, and classical composers, they’re eclectic, dynamic and always have a cinematic flair.
Audiences all over the US gather in art house cinemas to experience The Invincible Czars’ intricately crafted and precisely performed silent film soundtracks. The band aims to give modern day movie-goers a musical context through which they can better appreciate the importance and artistry of silent era films.
Right now they are making a long west coast tour and The Invincible Czars arrive in Portland next Tuesday, May 21st @ 7:30pm for their accompaniment to THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door.
This screening on Wednesday, May 22 @ 7pm is a fundraiser for Portland Waldorf Schools. Waldorf education is celebrating its 100th year in 2019, and the schools have a global initiative to integrate more deeply with our surrounding community and to help raise awareness of global sustainability issues that affect us all. One such issue is the decline of the bee population.
QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are The Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the bee crisis from Taggart Siegel (Portland, OR), award-winning director of “The Real Dirt on Farmer John.”
Question & Answer session after the screening with Director Taggart Siegel along with some local beekeeping experts!
Proceeds from the screening will benefit the five Portland Waldorf schools and used to fund plants and bee keeping supplies.
"One of the most beautiful nature films I've ever seen." - Roger Ebert
Tickets are $5-20 sliding scale, and available in advance and at the door.
Another fundraiser, this screening on Thursday, May 23 @ 7pm is a BENEFIT to raise funds for the ParaTheatrical ReSearch performance of "New Revelations of Being" (text by Antonin Artaud) to be directed by Antero Alli later this year.
"The Invisible Forest incites and dares the viewer to let go of concepts and accept the risky adventure of following the free, unimpeded energies of the body and mind. Since, in real life, Alli engages in paratheatrical research, it becomes obvious that the film’s fictional story is constructed out of documentary elements." - David Finkelstein, filmthreat.com (4-stars)
SYLVI & ANTERO ALLI perform a short set of their music before the film. Filmmaker Q&A after the film.
Tickets $8 in advance or at the door.
COMING SOON
Clinton Street Resistance Series: SEVEN SAMURAI, May 27; LA LA LAND, June 3.
Danger always strikes when everything seems fine.
The April KILLER QUEEN show was a blast and this month promises to be even better as we celebrate host, producer, & starlet Violet Hex’s birthday with all things DEEE-gorgeous, DEEE-lectible, DEEE-licous, DEEE-lovely, DEEE-vine, DEEE-groovy & DEEE-LITE! OOH LA LA, LA LA LA LA LA LAH! The queens will be paying tribute to Deee-Lite, Wigstock, and Lady Miss Kier by performing DEEE-LITE’s first studio album “WORLD CLIQUE” (1990) in it’s entirety & original track listing! With a few of other very fav DEEE-LITE hits thrown into the mix, for your pleasure! Don't miss it!! May 24 @ 9pm.
STRANGE DIVINITY is a rock opera that takes you on a supernatural journey through the land of the Immortals and the Mortals, using quantum theory to spin its tale. All righty then. Saturday, May 25 @ 6pm, with a selection of shorts prior to this feature directed by Carlos Severe Marcelin and Jason Wesley Turner.
Castle Thunder presents NIGHT OF THE SHE’S Tuesday, May 28. A special DOUBLE-FEATURE of 50s science fiction B-movies on 16mm FILM. Otherworldly dances! Strange mutations! Unknown forces! A double feature of B-movie weirdness featuring out of this world femmes fatales! THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER (1957) 7pm; SHE DEMONS (1958) 8:30pm.
Psychedelics and Birth: Conscious Creation of the Future on Wednesday, May 29 explores how birth and re-birth impacts our future. Childbirth and psychedelic journeys have striking parallels that can inform the other in the preparation, journey and integration phases. No one births or trips the same so we must protect the diversity of ways people can choose to experience and navigate these events. These journeys are revelatory and can have direct application to our individual and collective awakening.
Aurora Chorus sings of the critical state of humanity’s relationship with Earth on Sunday, May 19 @ 4pm. Join them as they honor our Mother and hold on to a hope of a better world for future generations. Featuring the West Coast premiere of director Joan Szymko’s setting of Wendell Berry’s poem “Look Out.”
Rose Festival Opening Night Fireworks is Friday, May 24th when the sky gets dark. You can hang out at the City Fair when it opens at 5pm.
Celebrate the Goonies in Astoria June 7th - 10th.
The 91st Annual Portland Scandinavian Midsummer Festival on Saturday, June 8, 2019 from 11 AM – 6 PM has everyting you want--Music, Dancing, Games, Nordic Food, Vendors, Beer Garden, Kids Area & More!
Celebrate the 35th annual Tigard Festival of Balloons June 21-23, 2019!
July is Oregon Craft Beer Month, so make plans to attend the Portland Craft Beer festival, a big outdoor party at the Fields Neighborhood Park. You'll find the broadest selection of local beers, ciders and wine, all originating from Portland, Oregon.
I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me.
— Wangarĩ Muta Maathai
Don't be a stranger. Come see us soon.
Kind regards,
Lani Jo
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