This week: zines at Fubonn, psychedelic theater, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. by Lindsay Costello It got 10 degrees warmer, and I got 10 degrees more confident that I should be out IN THE WINDS, soaring free to a Sam Shepard staging abo ut arts under capitalism or a MOTHERFUCKING GEM SHOW at OMSI. [It's agate and minerals, calm down. -eds.] In this week's Do This, Do That we've got the picks for stuff you need to peep. MonsterBox Comedy appears for just one night at Portland Center Stage. Someone will finally let me pay money to watch comedic genuses Adam Pasi and Nariko Ott argue at Topic Thunder. Do you want to attend a fest with over 100 Asian zinesters or let the Sun Ra Arkestra fill you with visions of stellar light? We've got you sorted. Scroll forth! SUZETTE SMITH Monday, February 23 History Pub: Big Medicine: York Outdoors documentary screening and QA  Last October marked the very first York Fest, a celebration of the enslaved man who trekked across the nation as part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Examining York’s life before and after the momentous journey, public historian Zachary Stocks of Oregon Black Pioneers offers a holistic and detailed biography of Portland’s first Black ancestor, capturing his personhood beyond his status as a historical figure. (McMenamins Kennedy School, 5736 NE 33rd, 7 pm, $5, more info, all ages) BRI BREY     Also worth it:   KMHD Listener Skate Night, Oaks Park, more infoSmooth floors and smoother sax abounds at this skate night hosted by the radio station, which promises "jazz without boundaries" beneath disco lights.   Tuesday, February 24 Portland Trail Blazers vs Minnesota Timberwolves Hot off of winning NBA All-Star MVP and naming Timothée Chalamet White Boy of the Year, Anthony Edwards is bringing all that energy to Portland on Tuesday, as the Trail Blazers face off against the Minnesota Timberwolves. National basketball media is currently deeply fixated on Edwards, hoping that he'll be the first American in seven seasons to win the NBA's MVP title. Edwards has laughed off the fanfare by leaning into being a good hang and a REALLY good baller. He's averaging nearly 30 points a game, throwing down highlight dunks, and suddenly becoming a three-point sharpshooter (making an elite 40.2 percent of his threes). He’s led the Timberwolves—historically the worst NBA franchise—to back-to-back Western Conference Finals appearances. We'll certainly be seeing the Wolves in the playoff mix this year, so it's exciting to check how the Blazers do against them this week. The Wolves are a team they'll need to overcome with some consistency if the Blazers really hope to take the next step out of mediocrity. (Moda Center, 1 N Center Ct, 7 pm, more info, all ages) CAMERON CROWELL Wednesday, February 25 The Sun Ra Arkestra If you have not seen the Sun Ra Arkestra on one of their Portland sojourns—the city they call their “West Coast home”—it is time, the spaceways are calling. Formed by and around galactic jazz giant Sun Ra, the Arkestra continues putting the stellar in interstellar under the direction of Marshall Allen. At 101 years old, Allen is the last remaining Arkestra member to have played with Ra before his transition away from this temporal plane in 1993. Though Ra is most often pegged as an Afrofuturist, his and the Arkestra’s music runs the gamut of jazz music, sometimes dipping into pop and show tunes. It’s a privilege to see this music live; a deep well of gratitude to Portland’s Lonely God for facilitating the ceremony. (Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, 8 pm, $40, more info, all ages) NOLAN PARKER Topic Thunder It’s back! The monthly news-skewering comedy show, Topic Thunder, returns for another laugh-filled evening about topics that ordinarily make you cry or fume. Your whip-smart hosts, Adam Pasi and Nariko Ott, present and riff on the latest headlines of the week, and are joined by some of the city’s best stand-ups who have written brand new “newsy” material, as well as special headlining guest, Susan Rice—who is a goddamn hoot, so help me god. Plus there are giveaways and other surprises, too… so I guess it’s your choice: Cry or laugh your ass off about the news. (Pssst… I suggest choosing the latter.) (Siren Theater, 3913 N Mississippi, 7:30 pm, $20, more info, all ages) WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Adam Pasi (@admpasi) Thursday, February 26 HUMP! Film Festival  So I was on the selection committee for HUMP! this year… Y’ALL NASTY! And while I know which submissions made the cut, I don’t know which will screen in the spring run and which will appear in the fall. Troll dolls getting absolutely used and abused, cum on rye, and a freaky fae sucking off a log up the Washougal are a few that really stood out during the nine-plus-hour committee screening. Portland pulled up (pulled out?) strong with a bunch of horny submissions—no surprise—as did Seattle and Berlin. Special shout to the one submission coming from Redmond, Oregon. It’s feral out there in Central Oregon, keep up the good work! (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, times vary, $20-$25, more info, 18+) NP Friday, February 27 25th Annual Agate and Mineral Show Rocks beautiful rocks. Fans of Hillsboro's Rice Museum and/or graduated contenders of the Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils portion of Science Olympiad take note. Oregon Agate and Mineral Society (OAMS) kicks off its 25th Annual Agate and Mineral Show at OMSI Friday, and does not stop showing off thunder eggs, jasper, cabochon, and more til closing time Sunday. We have no idea how approachable presentations on the mystery behind Oregon sunstones or the ways fossils reveal Earth’s ancient climates will be, but admission is free and even a dabbler might enjoy cruising the exhibition floor. Real ones will want to test their geology knowledge at Rock Pub Trivia on Saturday. (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), 1945 SE Water, Feb 27-March 1, 10 am-5 pm, FREE, more info, all ages) SUZETTE SMITH           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Oregon Agate And Mineral Society (@oregonagatemineralsociety) MonsterBox Comedy: Paris Sashay In case you haven’t noticed, Portland Center Stage has flung open their doors to Portland’s hot-as-heck comedy scene. And tonight they have a banger of a production from the POC-packed MonsterBox Comedy, featuring a great lineup of standups (including 2025 Mercury Genius of Comedy Andrea Menchaca, Danny Meyerend, and Taizah Reed), DJ Ambush, host Adam Pasi, and super special guest, Paris Sashay! This comedian/actor/writer hails from Washington, DC, and has appeared at Montreal’s Just for Laughs festival, as well as on Comedy Central, HBO, and the Epix stand-up special Unprotected Sets. And if you like straight-shootin’ comedy (with a decidedly gay edge), you won’t want to miss this one! (Portland Center Stage Ellen Bye Studio, 128 NW 11th, 8 pm, $20-$45, more info, 18+) WSH            View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Paris Sashay (@parissashay) Saturday, February 28 Ekphrasis, a Portland Community College Faculty Exhibition What do you get when art instructors and poetry instructors meld their mediums? Portland Community College faculty have collaborated to find out. Art begets poetry in Ekphrasis, a new PCC faculty exhibition featuring poems inspired by works of art. As the exhibition’s curators explain, the installment is an exploration of ekphrasis–a vivid style of writing inspired by a piece of art–that sets out to see what unfolds “when writers and visual artists position their work in relation to each other.” Featured artists have “built a unique vocabulary of colors, textures, lines, shapes, space, and ideas,” while poets “developed a voice with particular words, rhythms, sounds, and silences.” (PCC Sylvania Campus, Communications Technology Building, 12000 SW 49th, opening reception from 5-8 pm, ruins through April 17, FREE, more info, all ages) COURTNEY VAUGHN  Tatiana Simonova, "The Speaker Revealed" (2022-24). COURTESY PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE azn zine fest As one of the most accessible forms of expression and making art, zines can be a deeply personal practice, and they can also be a source of community connection. Organized by Asian American artists Envy Estacio, Yoko Okay, A’misa Chiu, Sarah Joy Calpo, Julia Kim, Natalie Soutonglang, and SJ Anderson, over 100 Asian zinesters will gather for the inaugural azn zine fest, a one-day festival that was selected by PICA as a 2026 Precipice Fund grant recipient. Yumi Sakugawa, a Japanese diasporic interdisciplinary artist and the fest's special guest, will table in addition to speaking and performing at a pre-fest artist talk and the fest after party. (Fubonn Shopping Center, 2850 SE 82nd, 12-5 pm, FREE, more info, all ages) JANEY WONG Also worth it: Biz Miller: Universal Friendly Outlook, Parallel Worlds Bookshop, more infoArtist Biz Miller's glowing patchwork spacecraft lanterns touch down right where they belong—at sci-fi mainstay Parallel Worlds Bookshop. Sunday, March 1 Geography of a Horse Dreamer Sam Shepard is considered a once-in-a-generation playwright talent—one of his key works, Geography of a Horse Dreamer, was written in 1974 and explores corruption of the arts under capitalism and the ultimately broken American dream. Hmm, timely. Packed with dark humor and Shepard’s signature bleak surrealism, the story follows Cody, a kidnapped cowboy with a knack for predicting horse races in his dreams, and his mobster captors, busy exploiting his gift for cash. Imago Theatre recreates this psychedelic thriller with grit and poetry, a sincerely Shepard combination—the March 1 matinee is your last chance to catch their production. (Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th, 2 pm, $37, more info, 16+) BB Also worth it: Transgressors, Lewis Clark College Hoffman Gallery, more infoCurated by Anthony Hudson and Felix Furby, this exhibition compiles works by a wide range of queer Indigenous artists, including Jeffrey Gibson, Native Hawaiian kapa-maker Lehuauakea, and children's book illustrator Steph Littlebird. Looking for even more events happening this week? Head on over to EverOut! ...read more read less