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Good Afternoon, Portland! Do you think the pioneers also found life to be absurd? Let’s get into some absurd news!

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Today Mayor Wheeler announced / outlined his long-prophesied proposal to ban homeless camping in Portland. Mercury News Editor Alex Zielinski breaks down the plan’s five pieces and further complications, such the detail where city policy already bans camping in public right-of-ways, but can’t enforce the restriction because a federal court ruled that punishing people for sleeping in public when they have nowhere to go is cruel and unusual.

• Elizabeth Warren go time! Sen. Warren will visit Portland and Milwaukie tomorrow to support Tina Kotek in her race for governor and Jamie McLeod-Skinner in her run to represent Oregon’s 5th Congressional District. BUT WHAT ICE CREAM WILL SHE CHOOSE? Ice Queen! Nico’s! Won’t somebody please get this list to her—this is important.

• On Tuesday, Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird opened at the Keller. Its last Portland show unfolds Sunday. Check out our review to see if you should grab tickets.  

• You’ve no doubt heard the screaming: There’s a new Cate Blanchett movie where she plays a devastating, difficult figure. But you could also be screaming because the film’s director Todd Field was raised in Portland and directed the raved-about 2001 Sissy Spacek drama In the Bedroom. TÁR is even better!

Glad that @EclecticHutch reviewed Tár for us because my review would have just been “CATE BLANCHETT” 253 times.https://t.co/TVxvwXK71B

— Suzette Smith (@suzettesmith) October 20, 2022

• The time has come for this week’s most delicious news. A recently-opened Italian restaurant offers a strawberry shortcake with sweet parmesan cream (ooOOo?), a popular hotel bar has donned a Black Lagoon  Halloween costume, and all the other “seems neat” tidbits food scene fans will want to know.

• Before you head out to dine, don’t forget to fuck. And while you’re making plans to fuck, you might want to grab some tickets to the in-person HUMP re-screen happening next week at Revolution Hall.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• WELP, the Jan 6 committee subpoenaed Donald Trump. It might be time to find out whether Congress can compel testimony from a former president. Might be kind of a shitty time to set that precedent, though, considering the Supreme Court has gone goblin mode.

• It’s cool that Sen. Lindsey Graham thinks our legal system is just like calling customer service. Hot on the heels of a federal court ruling that said he could be compelled to testify before a grand jury investigating attempts at overturning the 2020 election—and a very juicy phone call he shared with Trump—Graham has asked to speak to that court’s manager, petitioning the Supreme Court to block the subpoena. Which maybe they’ll do? Like I said, it’s goblin mode over there.

• And now, a brief moment for majesty and progress.

If this majestic landscape looks familiar, you may recognize the original. Here, @NASAHubble’s iconic view, taken in visible light, is on the left. Webb “sees” in infrared light invisible to our eyes, allowing it to pierce through the dust and reveal stars galore (right). pic.twitter.com/iZVXOhcuRH

— NASA Hallo-Webb Telescope 🕸🕷🎃 (@NASAWebb) October 19, 2022

• Oh, this is cool, our sister paper The Stranger has a new column that tracks “worker conquests” and labor news! Because those disputes do be ongoing and hard to keep up with.

• Support for unions is at its highest in decades, but actual union membership is at historic lows, as explained by Planet Money‘s Jack Corbett:

It’s illegal to retaliate against union organizing. Does it still happen? yup.https://t.co/Oala9bGFe3 pic.twitter.com/LKJLsSOYKn

— NPR’s Planet Money (@planetmoney) October 19, 2022