Music My Spanish isn’t as great as it once was, but when Y La Bamba’s Luz Elena Mendoza pulls out an unfurling falsetto to sing “Escu-u-uchame” at the beginning of the song “Bendito,” I’m definitely going to listen to her. Hell, she could sing in a made-up nonsensical language and still manage to command attention. I’ve followed the evolution of the local frontwoman’s voice for years,...   More

Music Stories Formed: 2006 in North Carolina. Sounds like: Improvisational folk musicians prone to frequent jazz, experimental and rock seizures.  For fans of: The Grateful Dead, Blitzen Trapper, Akron/Famil   More

Books The Honey Badger is a tenacious beast indeed. The meme, originated in a YouTube video that channeled the Crocodile Hunter through South Park’s Big Gay Al, has spread like germs in a grade-scho   More

Books Book-loving, twentysomething thrift-store shoppers will find local author Alexis Smith’s Glaciers at home in their hands. Smith’s debut novel’s main character, Isabel, is the epitome of the    More

Books Bookstores already dedicate whole shelves to Georgia O’Keeffe. That didn’t stop Portland author Karen Karbo from adding one more book, How Georgia Became O’Keeffe: Lessons on the Art of Livi   More

Performance You are living under a rock if you haven’t heard about Cavalia, the show often described, at least around our office, as “Cirque du Soleil with horses.”    More

Headout The Last Waltz—The Band’s farewell concert that Martin Scorsese turned into an acclaimed rockumentary—turns 35 this week. To mark the anniversary, 50 Portland musicians pay tribute by re-enactin   More

Food & Drink There’s already an abundance of restaurant roundups for Thanksgiving from other media outlets (or, as our office’s only Australian likes to call it, “Thanks-for-nothing.”) However, most of these places are completely booked. So, for those of you non-traditionalists, non-cookers and non-thanksgivers looking to find delicious and comforting alternatives for your Thursday meal, here are...   More

Books Writing compelling copy about the country’s largest Christian rock festival takes a rare breed of writer. Infusing the power of shared human experience and the complexity of multigenerational    More

Arts & Books There is a giant white four-tower tent on NW 12th and Quimby. Why? 
Cavalia, the traveling show that mixes performing arts with equestrian and mystical costumes, has just landed, literally, in Portland. Along with a staff of 100+ people and a whole bunch of horses, creator Normand Latourelle brings to town what is suppose...   More