Top Things to Do This Weekend: Jan 7–10
Stand-up Baron Vaughn (Frankie and Grace, Conan, Jimmy Fallon) brings his Saturdaze Tour to the Doug Fir. The extraordinary Amy Miller opens, along with Curtis Cook and Nariko Ott. Image courtesy Baron Vaughn.
MUSIC
Death never sounded so luscious: Federale rides a dark horse into Mississippi Studios this Friday.
Federale
Friday at 9 pm, Mississippi Studios
The Portland band’s darkly vampy, atmospheric anthems have found their way into films from Iranian noir A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night to, yes, The Lego Movie.
Miz Kitty's Parlour: Enchantment by the Sea
Saturday at 8 pm, Alberta Rose Theatre
The beloved semi-regular vaudevillian variety show returns with sketch comedy, a "ginger juggler," jazzy dancers, and musical acts including Portland's own Ukeladies, bossa nova from Perola, and Jet Black Pearl—"chanteuse of the accordion."
COMEDY
Baron Vaughn
Saturday at 9 pm, Doug Fir Lounge
He plays Bud on Netflix's Frankie and Grace, has worked comedy festivals from Montreal's Just for Laughs to Bumbershoot, and makes the late-night circuit on Conan and Jimmy Fallon. Now he tours for new comedy album Raised by Cable; the amazing Amy Miller opens.
Script Tease
Saturday at 7:30 pm, Brody Theater
A Portland playwright delivers a sealed copy of the first eight pages of a new play; the audience casts the Brody's in-house ensemble of improv comedians, who proceed promptly to a cold reading. When the script ends, they'll have to...improvise!
BOOKS & TALKS
Jennifer Chambers
Friday at 7:30, Powell's City of Books
The local genre writer tries her hand at history with Remarkable Oregon Women, a sweeping survey of strong dames from Vanport activist Julia Ruuttila to the Umatilla woman who unseated her own husband as mayor.
THEATER
OPENING Golden Boy
Friday & Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 7 pm, Lakewood Center for the Arts
Clifford Odets’s acclaimed bildungsroman set in Depression-era Harlem erupts on the Lakewood stage. Tortured protagonist Joe Bonaparte dreams of becoming a violinist; circumstances force him into prize-fighting. Vladimir Ilnitzky directs this timeless tale of fractured selfhood.
VISUAL ARTS
OPENING Jim Lommasson: Exit Wounds and What We Carried
Thursday–Sunday from noon to 5 pm, Blue Sky Gallery
This Portland photographer explores the lasting impact of the Iraq War through interviews with (and images of) American soldiers returned home (Exit Wounds) and Iraqi refugees who have fled theirs (What We Carried).
OPENING Josh Michaels: 24–Hour Empire
Thursday–Saturday from 11 am to 6 pm, Upfor Gallery
An “art and science project” inspired by Andy Warhol’s 1964 extended filming of the Empire State Building, this interactive screening and art show asks what Warhol might make of time-lapse today.
OPENING Ayumi Takahashi
Thursday & Friday, Duplex Gallery
The emerging Japanese abstract artist (now Portland-based) started as an illustrator of digital works like 2012 children’s book Is That All There Is. Takahashi’s style—representational work tinged with the joyful absurdity of a postmodern, candy-colored comic strip—plays out in vibrant colors for her exhibit at Duplex.
CLOSING Alien She
Thursday–Saturday from 11 am to 6 pm, Pacific Northwest College of Art
Curators Astria Suparak and Ceci Moss trace the legacy of the riot grrrl movement—from the rise of Girls Rock camps to the activism of Russian rockers Pussy Riot—through the works of seven North American multimedia artists.
