Dave Knows Portland

Things to do in Portland on Christmas Day 2014

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Christmas Day doesn’t have to be about family™

SHOPS

Powell’s Books (1005 W Burnside). The downtown Powell’s is open 10 AM to 6 PM on Christmas Day (all other locations, save the one at the airport, are closed).

ACTIVITIES

Seedy, Seamy & Sinful Portland Tour: Join Kick Ass Oregon History‘s Resident Historian Doug Kenck-Crispin for the Naughtiest Walking Tour of the Year on Christmas Day, 2014.

Movies. Catch a movie – many movie theaters are also open on the Holiday.

Notably, The Hollywood Theatre is showing The Interview on Christmas Day!

Bowling. Many (most?) bowling alleys, are open on Xmas day.

BARS, CAFES, and RESTAURANTS

Radio Room (1101 Northeast Alberta) will also be open again this year, serving a special brunch menu from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM and a special dinner menu 3:30 PM to 9:00 PM And they accept reservations.

Mary’s Club (129 SW Broadway), of course, is always open.

Rialto (529 SW 4th). This downtown institution is open 365 days a year. Play some pinball or pool, while enjoying your beer. Watch basketball on the ginormous TVs.

The Beer Mongers are open all day on Christmas, and they will tap a few special kegs.

For a comprehensive list visit PortlandBarFly.com‘s Bars open in Portland 365 days a year

And Portland Food and Drink maintains a handy list of restaurants open Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

TRANSIT

TriMet’s Christmas Day schedule: TriMet buses, MAX trains, and the Streetcar will run on Sunday schedules. No WES service!

The information in this post is compiled through a combination of hearsay, website perusals, assumptions, and direct contact – please do not take it as gospel; if you don’t want to make a fruitless trip out, give the place a call first!

Old Town History: “Illumination #1” (4-7, 12-14, 19-21 December 2014)

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Illumination #1For three weekends in December the 1881 Mariner’s Building (209 NW 3rd) will be the location, and canvas, for Illuminations #1, a site-specific work by artist Rose Bond.

[E]ducator and animator Rose Bond, will use the windows of the historic building as screens for still and moving images that evoke specific gestures, story fragments, and names to explore the identities of the Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, Roma, and other residents of Old Town and Chinatown.

Opening night is First Thursday, December 4, 2014. The project will be displayed from 6 PM to 8 PM on December 4-7, 12-14, and 19-21. The project is part of the “Illuminations Series” of the Old Town History Project, a community-based history, art and culture organization devoted to the preservation and revitalization of Portland’s oldest surviving historic district. Visit the Restore Oregon website for more details.

Science Pub Portland: Shaping Light with Folded Surfaces (18 November 2014)

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Omsi Science PubScience Pub Portland presents Shaping Light with Folded Surfaces tonight at the Empirical Theater at OMSI (1945 SE Water Ave.).

Light reveals our visual universe. Light shapes how we perceive form and the boundaries of space. Light gives vitality to immutable form, revealing the familiar in new ways. Small adjustments in light intensity, composition and viewpoint can yield big changes in highlights and shadow patterns.

Nancy Cheng experiments with how sheet materials can be cut, creased, or crimped to generate lighting effects that change with the sun’s movement, while blocking unwanted heat and glare. Her Shaping Light project explores how physical prototyping and digital methods can be combined to foreground material properties in design. She seeks the creative possibilities that stem from a material’s stiffness, shininess, translucence or color. She has used digital modeling for geometric variations, kinetic studies and lighting simulation in both open-ended studies and interior installations.

Presenter Nancy Cheng is Portland Program Director and an Associate Professor at the University of Oregon. The program begins at 7 PM, and there’s a $5.00 suggested cover charge.

Revolution: DB Cooper (22 November 2014)

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Revolution DB Cooper (2014)For the fourth year in a row, the geeked out history folks at Kick Ass Oregon History give us the straight shit on the NW’s most famous hijacker. Revolution: DB Cooper takes place Saturday, 22 November 2014 at Turn! Turn! Turn! (8 NE Killingsworth).

Revolution: DB Cooper is the exploration of the themes of counter-culture actions found in the DB Cooper caper, explorations conducted beyond a speaking of historical words. Ransom notes cobbled from Playboy magazines, clues in film and grooves from vinyl might be used to help shed light to this 43 year old case. Or might not in the least, either.

The evening includes a presentation by Resident Historian Doug Kenck-Crispin examining the D.B. Cooper case evidence in light of the themes of revolution, beating the system, and even Cascadia.

Film scholar Jeff Jaeckle will lead a hypothetical (and completely unsubstantiated) tour through the movies D.B. Cooper may have watched in 1971 to psych himself up for the heist of the century.

You won’t want to miss the raffle, and some Historical Interpretation. Through Vinyl.

DJs Hern Pong and Tommy Gunn have been digging through crates of crates to reconstruct possible radio sets from 1971. Cascadia Soul Alliance will be putting on their best drinking caps to sonically place you back in a time when AM was king, and 8-tracks were not a website but rather tangible objects. In doing so they are doing their part in attempting to help get inside the head of a person many fellow Cascadians desire to identify with.

Admission is only $6. Turn! Turn! Turn! is a small venue though, so buy tickets in advance if you can. Visit OrHistory.com for all the details.

Made in Oregon: 16mm Industrial Films from the Pacific Northwest (12 November 2014)

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Made in OregonThe Oregon Historical Society presents Made in Oregon, an evening of 16mm films produced by local area businesses on Wednesday 12, November 2014 at the Hollywood Theatre (4122 NE Sandy Blvd).

From the vaults of the Oregon Historical Society comes Primarily from the 1960s through the early 1980s, these films were created as public service announcements, training films and as plain old goofy advertisements. Learn why it might make sense to open an Organ Grinder franchise, how Son of Hibachi makes the party or why Homer Groening thinks we can make the world a better place. Some of the local institutions that will grace the big screen with their weirdness include: The Organ Grinder, The Oregon Zoo, Tektronix, Jantzen Swimwear, Blitz Beer and more.

The screening begins at 7:30 PM, admission is $8. Advance tickets are available.