If you’ve been tuning into State of Wonder this fall, you know that we’ve been full bore on a flash fiction contest being run by the Portland/Brooklyn publisher Tin House. It’s called Plotto, after a weird gem of a book from 1928, “Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots,” which collects 1,462 plots in an encyclopedic list to help struggling writers. “Plotto” was written by the pulp author William Wallace Cook. "Like 'Plotto,' he was sort of a plot generator himself," Tin House editor Masie Cochran...
Dec 09, 2016•31 min
If you’ve been tuning into State of Wonder this fall, you know that we’ve been full bore on a flash fiction contest being run by the Portland/Brooklyn publisher Tin House. It’s called Plotto, after a weird gem of a book from 1928, “Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots,” which collects 1,462 plots in an encyclopedic list to help struggling writers. “Plotto” was written by the pulp author William Wallace Cook. "Like 'Plotto,' he was sort of a plot generator himself," Tin House editor Masie Cochran...
Dec 09, 2016•4 min
If you’ve been tuning into State of Wonder this fall, you know that we’ve been full bore on a flash fiction contest being run by the Portland/Brooklyn publisher Tin House. It’s called Plotto, after a weird gem of a book from 1928, “Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots,” which collects 1,462 plots in an encyclopedic list to help struggling writers. “Plotto” was written by the pulp author William Wallace Cook. "Like 'Plotto,' he was sort of a plot generator himself," Tin House editor Masie Cochran...
Dec 09, 2016•4 min
If you’ve been tuning into State of Wonder this fall, you know that we’ve been full bore on a flash fiction contest being run by the Portland/Brooklyn publisher Tin House. It’s called Plotto, after a weird gem of a book from 1928, “Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots,” which collects 1,462 plots in an encyclopedic list to help struggling writers. “Plotto” was written by the pulp author William Wallace Cook. "Like 'Plotto,' he was sort of a plot generator himself," Tin House editor Masie Cochran...
Dec 09, 2016•3 min
If you’ve been tuning into State of Wonder this fall, you know that we’ve been full bore on a flash fiction contest being run by the Portland/Brooklyn publisher Tin House. It’s called Plotto, after a weird gem of a book from 1928, “Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots,” which collects 1,462 plots in an encyclopedic list to help struggling writers. “Plotto” was written by the pulp author William Wallace Cook. "Like 'Plotto,' he was sort of a plot generator himself," Tin House editor Masie Cochran...
Dec 09, 2016•5 min
If you’ve been tuning into State of Wonder this fall, you know that we’ve been full bore on a flash fiction contest being run by the Portland/Brooklyn publisher Tin House. It’s called Plotto, after a weird gem of a book from 1928, “Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots,” which collects 1,462 plots in an encyclopedic list to help struggling writers. “Plotto” was written by the pulp author William Wallace Cook. "Like 'Plotto,' he was sort of a plot generator himself," Tin House editor Masie Cochran...
Dec 09, 2016•4 min
What we noticed this week: people throwing off convention to remake a city, reinterpret symphonic music, inspire a new wave of activism, or just bang out a new beat. Take a break from holiday hurly-burly to hear all the latest. You (and You and You) Can Own a Slice of This Building - 1:10 In the middle of one of Portland’s biggest real estate booms, one building stands out. It’s called the Fair-Haired Dumbbell, but it’s not just the name and psychedelic design that make it unique. It's also the ...
Dec 03, 2016•52 min
Do you ever drive by one of the dozens of buildings going up in Portland and think, man, I wish I owned a slice of that masonry pie? Well, now you can. In the middle of one of Portland’s biggest real estate booms, one building stands out, and not just for its name and psychedelic paint job. The Fair-Haired Dumbbell is the first building in Oregon and one of the first in the country to raise money via new crowd-funding regulation approved by Congress. Read the full story: http://www.opb.org/radio...
Dec 02, 2016•6 min
Nov 25, 2016•3 min
Nov 25, 2016•2 min
Few Portland artists can claim deeper ties to the city than Julie Keefe. She’s shot for everyone from the Oregonian to the New York Times; she’s done major community engagement projects like Hello, Neighbor, where kids in North Portland interview elders about how the neighborhood has changed; and she’s wrapping up four years as Portland’s first creative laureate. But she might be best known, at least in Northeast Portland, as the primary photographer for the Skanner newspaper, where she’s docume...
Nov 25, 2016•9 min
The creative firm behind such famous spaces as the Alexandria Library and the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has its eyes on Portland's waterfront, and there's good news and bad. First, the bad: the James Beard Market Snohetta was set to design got booted from the Morrison Bridge site that folks were so excited about by the developer, Melvin Mark. This is at least the fifth time organizers have had to change sites in the past 17 years. In good news, the partners behind Snohetta's other p...
Nov 25, 2016•6 min
A brilliant stylist of crime lit, Hobbs is remembered by editor Gary Fisketjon and Professor Robert Knapp of Reed College. (photo cred. Leah Nash)
Nov 25, 2016•8 min
What a week! Disjecta's founder gets shown the door, we remember the precocious writer Roger Hobbs, Hari Kondabolu returns to Portland to put some funny back in politics, and we hear about the importance of play, even as an adult. Upheaval at Disjecta - 1:10 Disjecta Contemporary Arts Center is losing its founding executive director at the end of this year, and it’s not a happy split. The organization’s board took the unusual step of asking founding director Bryan Suereth to leave in what it cal...
Nov 24, 2016•52 min
Best-selling author Hobbs wrote his New York Times bestseller, "Ghostman" during his senior year at Reed College. At the same time he was working on his thesis with Robert Knapp, a professor of English and Humanities. Knapp shares memories of Hobbs, and explains the links between Hobbs' academic work and his neo-noir fiction.
Nov 24, 2016•12 min
This week, we bring you the second of two shows we'd recorded live at Wordstock, Portland's book festival. It's sparkling hour with three witty truth-tellers. But first, we wanted to check in: how're you feeling after the election. Artists Respond to Trump Portland hip-hop sensation Aminé hit the stage of "The Tonight Show" Tuesday, adding some politics to his viral song “Caroline”: "You can never make American great again / All you did is make this country hate again." His voice joined the chor...
Nov 19, 2016•52 min
The toast of the literary season is Portland’s book festival, Wordstock. This week we bring you the first of several shows we taped: a bang-up time with three exceptional authors, and one song that left us starry-eyed, recorded in front of a packed audience at the Winningstad Theater. Peter Ames Carlin on Paul Simon - 1:00 Peter Ames Carlin has written about some of the most iconic musicians of the 20th century: Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. His new book taps i...
Nov 11, 2016•51 min
Such a treat. The legendary dance-funk-art-rock band tells the story of their all-too-brief fall reunion, and what they love about playing together.
Nov 09, 2016•11 min
Eugene is a surprising hotbed of video games. "Tribes," "Godzilla: Destroy All Monster's Melee," and "Red Baron" are just a few games to be developed in its local studios. While larger studios like Pipeworks tend to employee the most people, there's also an active indie scene that is nowhere more apparent than at the second annual Indie Game Con. Hundreds of people filled Lane Community College in early October to play new titles, from space shooters like "XO" and "Star Mazer" to fantasy games l...
Nov 04, 2016•50 min
A collection of performance all-stars embark on a year-lond residenct with PNCA's Center for Contemporary Art and Culture. The first workshop session honed in on Takaihor Yamamoto's work-in-progress regarding consent. More over here, including video: http://www.opb.org/radio/article/physical-education-dance-collective-pnca/
Oct 29, 2016•8 min
War Cartoonist Joe Sacco on How Portland's Housing Crisis Is Like a Refugee Crisis You might find and unusual comic stuffed in your mailbox or slipped under the door in the coming weeks. Titled "Rent Crisis," it's by the award-winning Portland journalist and artist Joe Sacco. He’s spent his life creating wry black-and-white comics about people who live in war zones like Palestine, Bosnia, and Chechnya, but his latest project focuses on a conflict closer to home. Sacco’s friends with Chloe Eudaly...
Oct 29, 2016•52 min
Is your house historic—officially, as in listed on the National Register of Historic Places? In Oregon, nominating a house to the register is solely up to the owner, unless one person—anybody—can convince the Portland Landmarks Commission and National Park Service that your entire neighborhood is historic. If an effort by the Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association to create a new national historic district is successful, hundreds of property owners could find their houses listed. The reason has l...
Oct 22, 2016•12 min
What do the hit Broadway shows "Hamilton," "Matilda," "Hedwig and the Angry Itch," and "Pippin" have in common? Lake Oswego native-turned-Broadway producer Brisa Trinchero. Trinchero grew up working the box office at the Lakewood Theatre Company. Turns out she had a knack for business: by her mid-20s, she was running the Broadway Rose Theatre Company in Tigard. After leading the musical theater company through the renovation of a new theater, she found herself wanting a new challenge. "Having ac...
Oct 22, 2016•11 min
A new theater company has cropped up in Portland to tell the stories of people of color, and women. The first production for Beirut Wedding World Theatre Project goes onstage at the end of the month. Founders Bobby Bermea (Badass Theatre, Baseroots Theatre) and Jamie Rea (Sojourn Theatre) say their intention is to shine a light on the stories of women and people of color. For their inaugural production, they chose Zayd Dorhn’s play, “Reborning”. (photo cred. Russell J. Young)
Oct 21, 2016•6 min
The dynamic percussionist Colin Currie is back onstage this weekend with the Oregon Symphony. Midway through his artist’s residency, he’s performed with the Symphony as well as in non-traditional spots around the region. Currie visited our studio to talk about the composers and works that shaped him, and what he hopes new commissions can bring to life.
Oct 21, 2016•10 min
Star Percussionist Colin Currie Plays Our Studio — The Oregon Symphony welcomes Colin Currie back to the stage Oct. 22–24. We talk with Curry about how he’s pushing the boundaries of contemporary classical music, as a soloist and through commissioning new works for percussion and orchestra. Then we give him an assortment of office goods (think recycling bin, bucket, vase, Dragon Boat oar) and ask him to play a tune. Bravo Youth Orchestra — Oregon Art Beat brings us this profile of the first Oreg...
Oct 21, 2016•55 min
“Bright Half Life,” the sweeping story of lesbian soul mates, spans 45 years in little more than 60 minutes, which is a lot to keep track of if you’re an actor. So the company put up a timeline on the wall of the rehearsal room. "It’s this brilliant thing we can refer to," says actor Maureen Porter, pointing to pictures on the timeline showing news events that the play references, like the Challenger explosion and the passage of gay marriage. "We come and say, 'what was happening in 2004 and wha...
Oct 15, 2016•5 min
Tanya Barfield grew up in Portland and first caught the theater bug from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. But even though her plays have been performed around the country and got her nominated for a Pulitzer, they have never been staged in Portland. That is, until this year. Profile Theatre is running an entire season of her plays, ending with "Bright Half Life" from Oct. 27–Nov. 13. We’re going to spend this hour getting to know Barfield's work and exploring some ideas she’s turned us onto. So ...
Oct 15, 2016•51 min
Here's our extended interview with Emily Glassberg Sands, Ph.D, who teamed up with playwright Julia Jordan for three studies exposing gender bias in how theater decision-makers view incoming scripts.
Oct 15, 2016•29 min
Playwright Tanya Barfield turns us onto research that puts the problem into painful detail.
Oct 15, 2016•10 min
