Deadlines, computers, cell phones, commuting, work. The daily grind has made being grown-up rather … boring. A dull day lowers your mood and energy level and widens the waistline. But taking some time out of your day to play could be just the thing to lift your spirits and rock your heart rate. Word is spreading across Portland that full-grown kids are bringing back recess. On any given Wednesday evening in more...

Double-decker bikes, fire-spinning clowns, flying trapeze artists and death-defying acrobatic stunts. In Portland, you don’t have to wait for the circus to come to town. From concerts to parks, in studios and on the street, circus arts performers are taking over every inch of this city. For exercise, fun, a challenge and a treat, ordinary folks are realizing they don’t have to leave town to join the more...

For the first time in 11 years, Portland's schedule of spring and summer street fairs will not include Art on Alberta's Art Hop. The one-day annual celebration put on each year by AoA—the nonprofit founded to promote the Alberta Arts District—last year drew to the district more than 15,000 visitors, allowing artists and gallery owners to mix and mingle with vendors, neighbors, tourists, foodies, more...

The Theosophical Society in Portland has a rich history, an abundance of wisdom and a compelling story to tell. They're simply short on listeners. more...

Sponsored by Port of Portland What’s in a name? Although the Rose City by any other name would smell as sweet, how many Portlanders appreciate the significance of our city’s moniker? The city was founded as a port, after all, but few of us think much about how important the city's port function is to Portland. “Portlanders think about Tom McCall Waterfront Park and the rivers for recreation, more...

Libraries still circulate books, but they also and more frequently provide the public with experiential intangibles like access to their email accounts, job listings and rest of the Internet. But the librarians who run them remain vital, and the ways in which they interpret their roles may be on the verge of changing how we gather—and interpret—information. Access: Public Location: 1505 SE Gideon Street more...

Sometimes they work in public, sometimes in private. Often they perform their job thanklessly cloistered in rooms, hunched over books and other media. They may sometimes be quiet, but they are what keeps our civilization thrumming, and if they're doing it right, we never even know they're there. Here is a round-up of some rich morsels of Portland culture curated by some of our city’s finest librarians. more...

Bobbie Wallace learned to knit before she could read or write. But she resisted learning to spin her own yarn because, by the time she was a veteran knitter, the pile of unfinished projects and yarn had become pretty significant. "An enabler friend of mine shipped me a spinning wheel and said if I didn't like it, I could sell it or pass it along," Wallace says, looking over the blur of her spinning more...