Willamette Week

In 2019, Kimberly King Parsons broke one of the book world’s unwritten rules when she published a short story collection as her debut. Novels sell better, and conventional wisdom is that a fiction writer only “gets” to sell a story collection after proving their talents and market-worthiness with a big splashy book. Not so for Parsons, the Lubbock, Texas–born author who moved to Portland in 2017 after a stint in New York. Black Light was long-listed for the National Book Award. Critics adored it.

The Fly (1986) Halloween is a mere four weeks away, and Cinemagic is kicking off a monthlong block of scary movies with David Cronenberg’s body-horror masterwork The Fly. Unlike the 1958 version, Cronenberg’s film has little to do with George Langelaan’s short story beyond the Kafkaesque premise of “What if a dude got turned into a crazy bug monster?” Seth Brundle isn’t your daddy’s mad scientist but an eccentric hipster with all the nebbish charm of a young Jeff Goldblum in his breakout role.

SATURDAY, OCT. 3 Los Thuthanaka’s brilliance was a not especially well-kept secret in the experimental music underground by the time Elly and Joshua Crampton finally put out their phenomenal self-titled debut of switched-on Andean folk music last year. Both of the Bolivian American siblings boast great solo work, with Elly transfiguring Andean huayno music as Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua recording scouring solo electric guitar albums under his own name.

If you’ve managed to avoid it for the breadth of summer, today is your last day to take in the extraordinary beauty and whimsy of Swan Island Dahlia Festival, an annual tradition that winds like a colorful flower crown around summer, marking the onset and sunset of the season. Wear comfy shoes that photograph well: Across more than 50 acres are some 375 varieties of floral fantasia to navigate, and you’re gonna want those humble-brag photos for your ’Gram.

A lawsuit from a Boring, Ore. family alleges that the cityof Portland’s $2.5 billion Bull Run Filtration Project has subjected their home to “near-daily noise, vibration, dust, and blocked access” and has “disrupted” nearly all of the family’s daily activities, including sleep. The family made the claim Monday in Clackamas County Circuit Court.

This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state. There’s a shadow hanging over the Oregon’s governor’s race: a record $10 million check that a California carpenters union wrote to an affiliated Oregon political action committee Sept. 16.

In a tumultuous recent few months full of internal feuds and impeachments, the board overseeing Multnomah County’s vast network of community clinics—and its $200 million-plus budget—has needed plenty of legal advice. It’s gotten it from Lindy Laurence. She has spoken up at board meetings. She’s sent a lengthy legal memo. When the board impeached, or tried to impeach, certain of its members, she gave pointed counsel on the process.

The Oregon Department of Justice has subpoenaed records as part of an investigation into the failed startup Made In Old Town, which secured a $7 million loan from Prosper Portland and swiftly defaulted.

—Oregon House Majority Leader Ben Bowman (D-Tigard), discussing why tensions between Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America seem more pronounced at Portland City Hall than in the state Capitol. WW has commenced its election-season practice of inviting candidates in contested races to our office for endorsement interviews.

Tay Nakamoto and her husband, Andrew Stewart, bought their Beaverton home a year and a half ago, and immediately began filling it with color. The garage is filled with Stewart’s creations—he’s a self-employed artist and toy maker whose taxidermied monster heads come in colors ranging from naturalistic grays and browns to cheerful neons.