Rachel Saslow

Portland

Writer at Freelance

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Articles

82nd Avenue of Roses Parade Cuts Its Route by Half

1 week ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

The 19th annual 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade will return Saturday, April 26, albeit an abbreviated version. The new route will be about a mile long, down from its traditional 2.2 miles. The change, according to parade organizer Nancy Chapin, was to accommodate the marchers. “We had a lot of our folks that are elders saying, ‘This is a pretty long parade and we are having a hard time walking 2.2 miles,’” Chapin says.
Portland Songwriters Take On the Protest Music Genre

1 week ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

The protest song genre can have a bit of a stigma about it. A little musty, a little hippie, a little 1960s soapboxy. But local musician and show producer Rose Gerber is dusting it off and hosting an evening of original protest songs on April 26. The political moment calls for it, she says. She came up with the concept for the show back on election night when the U.S. map turned red with President Donald Trump votes.
Verselandia! Youth Poetry Slam Championship Turns 20

1 week ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

When McDaniel High School librarian Nancy Sullivan originally started the first youth poetry slam competitions in Portland in 2005, she didn’t have any concept of the new event’s staying power. Sullivan certainly didn’t think that, 20 years later, she would be interviewed about Verselandia!, a city-wide slam poetry event that will take the stage at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall April 24.
Comedy Wrestling Show Punchlines & Pile Drivers Returns

1 week ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

Like an indie, absurdist WrestleMania, Punchlines & Pile Drivers is an improvised comedy wrestling show happening at Curious Comedy Theater next weekend. Portland’s Funniest Person Ally J. Ward will host the April 18 show, which is scheduled to coincide with the actual WrestleMania 41 weekend in Las Vegas. “Even if you’re not a wrestling fan, you’ll love this show,” Ward says. “If you are a wrestling fan, you’ll really love this show. It’s silly.
Westward Whiskey Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

2 weeks ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

Portland distiller Westward Whiskey filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this week, Thomas Mooney, Westward’s founder and CEO, wrote in an April 9 email to club members. “This step is necessary as we explore financial and strategic alternatives to help our company thrive as an independent craft distiller,” Mooney wrote.
Dave Allen, Gang of Four Bassist and Portland Music Industry Consultant, Has Died

2 weeks ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

Dave Allen, bassist for seminal post-punk band Gang of Four, died April 5 at home in Portland with his family, according to the band’s announcement on social media. He was 69. He had early-onset mixed dementia. Allen was in Gang of Four for its 1979 debut Entertainment! and the second album, Solid Gold, in 1981.
Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge Faces Off With an Amusement Park Ride and New Sellwood Apartments

2 weeks ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

On any given morning, patient bird-watchers come to Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge with tricked-out binoculars, hoping to see some of the urban wetland’s 100-plus species of migratory and resident birds, including bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and red-tailed hawks. Oaks Amusement Park’s Ferris wheel and roller coaster stand guard over the meadow.
WW’s Ranking of Celebrity Trees of Portland

2 weeks ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

In Los Angeles, tourists can hop aboard a red bus and pay entertainment news outlet TMZ to show them where the stars live. Here in Portland, we don’t have too many bona fide celebrities walking the streets, unless you count all public figures, like the entirety of the Portland Trail Blazers and the 12 members of the City Council. Sadly, I’ve had to get my thrills spotting failed mayoral candidates and local weathercasters.
The Ladds 500 Returns, Now With No Cars on the Road

2 weeks ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

It’s spring, let’s do something stupid. That was the rallying call for the Ladds 500 when the bike relay began in 2016 and it remains so today. The stupid thing: ride around Ladd Circle Park & Rose Gardens 500 times, a feat that pencils out to about 100 miles—a century ride, in bike speak—in teams, switching bikes at least 10 times.
Portland Author Writes Debut Children’s Book Celebrating Family Diversity

3 weeks ago | wweek.com | Rachel Saslow

Emu dads raise babies all on their own, incubating eggs for eight weeks, but ruby-throated hummingbird moms take care of their offspring solo. Lots of baby black swans grow up with two dads while Laysan albatrosses have two moms. A new children’s book by first-time Portland author Fern Wexler explores such family diversity in the bird kingdom as a way to normalize the different family structures.