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Reading: Liz Prato: Volcanoes, Palm Trees, & Privilege

Gastro Mania - Multnomah Village 7850 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland, OR, United States

Annie Bloom's welcomes back Portland author Liz Prato to read from her new book, Volcanoes, Palm Trees & Privilege: Essays on Hawai'i. Prato will be joined in-conversation with musician Jim Jones, who was raised on Oahu. The event will take place next door to Annie Bloom's at Gastromania, with food and drink available. Liz Prato combines lyricism, research and humor to explore her role as a white tourist in a seemingly paradisiacal land that has been largely formed and destroyed by white outsiders. Hawaiian history, pop culture, and contemporary affairs are masterfully woven with her personal narrative of loss and survival in linked essays, offering unique insight into how the touristic ideal of Hawai'i came to be, and what Hawai'i is at its core. “Liz…

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Free

Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

For more than 5,000 years, “old” has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the moment that humans are living longer than ever, we’ve made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, disparaged, neglected, and denied. Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that’s neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy. In Elderhood (Bloomsbury), Aronson challenges not only the way we look at aging, but also the…

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Free

Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

In Waking the Witch (Gallery), podcast host and practicing witch Pam Grossman explores the cultural and historical impact of the world’s most magical icon. From the idea of the femme fatale in league with the devil to the bewitching pop culture archetypes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Harry Potter; from the spooky ladies in fairy tales and horror films to the rise of feminist covens and contemporary witchcraft, witches reflect the power and potential of women. Waking the Witch is a whip-smart and illuminating exploration of the world’s fascination with witches.

Free

Fatima Bhutto

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

A vast cultural movement is emerging from outside the Western world. Truly global in its range and allure, it is the biggest challenge yet to American mass-produced popular culture. New Kings of the World (Columbia Global Reports) is a book about the new arbiters of mass culture – India’s Bollywood films, Turkey's soap operas, or dizi, and South Korea's pop music. Fatima Bhutto's new book is an important dispatch from a new, multipolar order that is taking form before our eyes.

Free

Shayla Lawson & Emma Dabiri

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Shayla Lawson is major. You don’t know who she is. Yet. But that’s okay. She is on a mission to move black girls like herself from best supporting actress to a starring role in the major narrative. Whether she’s taking on workplace microaggressions or upending racist stereotypes about her home state of Kentucky, she looks for the side of the story that isn’t always told, the places where the voices of black girls haven’t been heard. The essays in Lawson’s This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope (Harper Perennial) ask questions like: Why are black women invisible to AI? What is “black girl magic”? Or: Am I one viral tweet away from becoming Twitter famous? And: How much magic does…

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Free

Pop Culture Poems! a Youth Poetry Slam Workshop | #Virtualandia! 2021

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This workshop will take a look at the ways poetry and pop culture intersect. We will practice inhabiting the voices of fictional characters, historical figures, and celebrities when tackling important themes in the work we create – from the likes of Mario to Frida Kahlo, Beyonce to Jon Snow. Led by Julia Gaskill, this workshop will experiment with using pop culture in writing, particularly in slam poetry, and will also do a quick rundown on how to write a slam poem. — RSVP HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtualandia-2021-workshop-and-qa-sessions-tickets-142756002045 — Workshops are free and open to all students. These will be hosted via Google Meet and led by talented youth and adult slam poets. For questions about this workshop, please contact Olivia Jones-Hall, Youth Programs Manager, at olivia@literary-arts.org. —…

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Free

Kaitlyn Tiffany in Conversation With Lindsay Zoladz

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

In 2014, on the side of a Los Angeles freeway, a One Direction fan erected a shrine in the spot where, a few hours earlier, Harry Styles had vomited. “It’s interesting for sure,” Styles said later, adding, “a little niche, maybe.” But what seemed niche to Styles was actually an irreverent signpost for an unfathomably large, hyper-connected alternative universe: stan culture. In Everything I Need I Get from You (MCD x FSG), Kaitlyn Tiffany, a staff writer at The Atlantic and a superfan herself, guides us through the online world of fans, stans, and boybands. Along the way we meet girls who damage their lungs from screaming too loud, fans rallying together to manipulate chart numbers using complex digital subversion, and an underworld of inside…

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Free

Rose City Comic Con 2022

Oregon Convention Center 777 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, Portland, OR, United States

Don’t miss out on Portland’s premier pop culture convention event this September! Rose City Comic Con is a fun, family-friendly 3-Day celebration of comics, gaming, sci-fi, cosplay, anime, fantasy, and every fandom in between!

$18 – $750

Elizabeth Weinberg in Conversation With Chelsea Biondolillo

Powell's City of Books 1005 W Burnside Street, Portland, OR, United States

As wildfires char the American West, extreme weather transforms landscapes, glaciers retreat, and climate zones shift, we are undeniably experiencing the effects of the climate crisis in more and more destructive ways. Climate change is impacting every inhabited region of the world, but there is much we can still do. Unsettling (Broadleaf) explores human impacts on the environment through science, popular culture, personal narrative, and landscape. Using the stories of animals, landscapes, and people who have exhibited resilience in the face of persistent colonization across the North American continent, science writer Elizabeth Weinberg explores how climate change is a direct result of white supremacy, colonialism, sexism, and heteronormativity. Travel through the deep sea; along Louisiana's vanishing bayous; down the Colorado, Mississippi, and Potomac rivers; and…

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Free
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