Portland OR Filter: Suggest a local events magazine for a Portland newbie!

January 26, 2008 7:39 AM

My friend recently moved to Portland, OR to go to grad school. I've sent her some guide books for the area, but I'd also like to give her a subscription to a weekly events-type magazine. I'm in NYC and I get a lot out of reading Time Out: New York -- listings of restaurants to try, shows to see, bands playing, etc. I don't think Time Out prints a Portland version, so I'm looking for suggestions from the masses here. Is there something similar to (or even better than!) Time Out:NY for Portland? Thanks!!
posted by ahimsa to Media & Arts (12 answers total)

Best answer: The best thing for events are the two free weekly newspapers Willamette Week and The Mercury. If your friend is in to pretty things, you could get a subscription to Portland Monthly - a slick little magazine about Portland things. They just created a new magazine called Portland Spaces (or is it just Spaces?) which is about art, design and architecture in the Northwest. It seems patterned along the likes of Dwell.
posted by amanda at 8:09 AM on January 26, 2008

Best answer: In addition to amanda's solid run-down (I'll second—and recommend also the websites of—WWeek and the Merc), there's another print glossy advermag called PDX Magazine that's more or less an also-ran to Portland Monthly.
posted by cortex at 8:38 AM on January 26, 2008

I'll assume that cortex meant his the Merc link to work. FTFY.

And yeah, those are the rags of record in this town. We have a fairly healthy craigslist as these things go, for more alt.events.
posted by mumkin at 9:50 AM on January 26, 2008

Best answer: If you're into The Arts, capital-T, capital-A, it's worth looking at the webite for PICA. A little more down-to earth is the local aggreblog urbanhonking.com, which has a good calendar.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:59 AM on January 26, 2008

Best answer: And if this seems a little bit of a let-down get your friend a couple passes to the Portland Art Museum and the Chinese Garden.
posted by amanda at 10:08 AM on January 26, 2008

I find Portland Monthly a bit too glossy and consumerish for my taste. It seems more aimed at the West Hills crowd rather than us scruffy indie types on the East side. Seconding the idea of museum passes or theater tickets instead.
posted by ottereroticist at 10:55 AM on January 26, 2008

Yar, so your question was about gifting her with a subscription to a weekly events publications, I realize. You can get subscriptions to the Willy Week ($90/year) and Mercury (??), but really, if she's in grad school I promise that she will find stacks of those things all over campus, as well as in every bar, coffee shop and student-budget-friendly restaurant, not to mention in boxes on the street corners. They're free and virtually omnipresent, and the only way to avoid them is to not leave your home (in which case missing the upcoming Decemberists' show should be the least of her worries).

So yeah... what other aspects of your friend would you like to address? Maybe if she's into a particular type of food we could recommend a restaurant to get a gift certificate from, etc.
posted by mumkin at 11:07 AM on January 26, 2008

Response by poster: @everyone: Fantastic! WWeek and The Merc look like great free versions of what I'm looking for, and I'll definitely recommend that she pick them up when she's out and about. Thanks for the pointer to urbanhonking's calendar, too. Great site. Portland Monthly and PDX look like New York Magazine - trying to have interesting news articles as well as event listings and reviews of stores/restaurants/areas. I think I'll get her a sub to one of them anyway. If nothing else, it'll give her something glossy to read in between textbooks!

@amanda: I *adored* the Chinese garden the one time I visited Portland. Their website is down now, but if there's a way for me to buy her passes via the interwebs, I absolutely will!

@mumkin: her main interests are reading (she's already found Powell's, of course), asian culture (that's what she's doing grad school in), and she loves thai food. Any recs on great thai restaurants or introductions/tours of the Chinatown area?

Thanks everyone!! This is her first time moving to a city by herself, and I know how hard it is (I moved to NYC 2 yrs ago) so I want to give her all the support I can.
posted by ahimsa at 11:12 AM on January 26, 2008

Best answer: On Thai food: If she hasn't been to Pok Pok yet, she'd better go soon.
posted by xil at 11:25 AM on January 26, 2008

Best answer: Other things to add to the list of stuff for her to read about / do in portland:

Visit VooDoo Doughnut. If you need any more explanation, look here.

I found Fugitives and Refugees a good book to read about the area, if you wanted a snarky, Chuck Palahniuk perspective of the city.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:30 AM on January 26, 2008

Heh, xil is right about Pok Pok. There's a lotta Thai in town, but they're widely regarded as being the best. They're also quite affordable, so other recommendations would just be superfluous for your purposes. I have reservations for dinner there tonight, in fact, so it definitely gets my vote.

Maybe you should give her a MeFi account, so she can ask all of her own PDXFilter questions :)
posted by mumkin at 1:02 PM on January 26, 2008

Chiming in late to plug my colleagues' Branches and Byways guide: interesting stuff near Multnomah County library branches. Also, AltPortland.
posted by ryansara at 3:14 PM on January 26, 2008