This year's first spate of supremely sunny days is upon us, but before you unzip the bottom half of your cargo pants and swan dive into the Willamette, remember that vaccine eligibility for all Oregon residents over 16 is just days away, and that staying isolated now is your best bet at touching your face at the beach in the near future. So, for now, open all your windows and scroll through this week's most noteworthy online events, from the stoner film fest SPLIFF Past Event Like List to readings with Joy Harjo Past Event Like List and this year's Oregon Book Award fiction finalists Past Event Like List . For even more options, check out our complete guide to COVID-safe April events Like List .

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THURSDAY

COMMUNITY

A Climate of Change Past Event Like List
Learn how the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area is addressing the calamities of climate change by adopting new Climate Crisis resolutions and growing its grassroots movement to protect Gorge communities from dangerous fossil fuel transport.

READINGS & TALKS

Michio Kaku Past Event Like List
The renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku will lay out the concepts outlined in his book The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything in laypeople's terms. 

Ocean Vuong Past Event Like List
The Pacific Northwest College of Art's MFA and MA Critical Studies programs will host this online talk with Ocean Vuong, whose latest novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, centers on a son writing a letter to his illiterate mother.

FRIDAY

COMMUNITY

Light the Way Past Event Like List
Take in performances from local theater artists Josie Seid, Lo Steele, Vivan Scarlett, and Jenn Mundia (plus other special guests) at this online fundraiser for Portland's Profile Theatre.

Make Waves Virtual Concert and Auction Fundraiser Past Event Like List
Try out your favorite TikTok dance during live performances from Northwest artists Mimi Naja (of Fruition), Moorea Masa, Stephanie Anne Johnson, and greaterkind at this fundraiser for the local nonprofit Musicians in Solidarity, which helps provide music scholarships for kids in underserved communities. There will also be a silent auction whose items include original artwork by Portland artist Mike Bennett, a weeklong hot tub rental, and gift certificates to local businesses like Good Foot.

SATURDAY

FASHION

BIPOC Runway: Movement, Community, Culture Past Event Like List
Local BIPOC designers will flaunt their latest runway designs in this livestream presented by Streamworks Media Collective.

MUSIC

Gala 2021: The Music Plays On Past Event Like List
This live concert hosted by Scott Showalter and resident Oregon Symphony musicians will honor Carlos Kalmar in his 18th and final season as Music Director.

Reverdie: The Return of Spring Past Event Like List
Award-winning violinist Hanami Froom and pianist Maria Garcia will join forces for the Portland Chamber Orchestra's spring concert at Nordic Northwest, celebrating the season with vibrant works by Chopin, Bach, Grieg, Vitaly, and others.

Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale Past Event Like List
Recorded live from Disjecta, the Portland Columbia Symphony will revive Stravinsky’s virtuosic fairytale rags-to-riches story for the digital stage, complete with a cast of actors. 

READINGS & TALKS

Oregon Book Award Fiction Finalists Reading Past Event Like List
Join Chelsea Bieker, Genevieve Hudson, Mark Savage, Vanessa Veselka, and Lidia Yuknavitch, the 2021 Oregon Book Award finalists for the Ken Kesey Award, for an online reading. 

MONDAY

READINGS & TALKS

Kim Stafford and John Morrison Past Event Like List
Sign up for an evening of poetry, music, and "possibly even a little film" with Portland wordsmiths Kim Stafford and John Morrison, who will be reading from their new collections Singer Come from Afar and Monkey Island, respectively. 

TUESDAY

FILM

Elastic Time: A Richard Linklater Master Class Past Event Like List
As the pandemic continues to skew our individual and collective sense of time, it's as good a time as any to delve into the work of Gen-X director Richard Linklater, for whom the passage of time has always been a theme worth investigating. In this Movie Madness class, the director will join you as you dissect Dazed & Confused (which happens to fall on 4/20, wink wink).

READINGS & TALKS

Joy Harjo Past Event Like List
With nine poetry collections, a memoir, and several plays and children's books under her belt (not to mention four albums—she's also an accomplished saxophonist), Literary Arts poet laureate Joy Harjo (a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation) will read some recently published poems featured in American Sunrise, as well as excerpts from her aforementioned 2012 memoir, Crazy Brave.

Levi Rogers Past Event Like List
Join Annie Bloom's and Portland author Levi Rogers for the release of Utah, his debut novel set in the not-so-distant future that follows a couple and their daughter as they flee from wildfires and the imminent threat of a Yellowstone volcano eruption to Utah, where they plan to attend a wedding in Zion National Park.

Paula McLain in Conversation With Sue Monk Kidd Past Event Like List
From the author of The Paris Wife comes a new mystery novel about a seasoned missing-persons detective in San Francisco who flees to Mendocino after the tragic death of a loved one. Instead of the downtime she was hoping for, she finds herself embroiled in an off-duty case of a missing teenager. Hear more from the author at this Powell's talk with Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees). 

Re-imagining Portland: Parks, Public Space, Memory, Creativity, and Spatial Justice Past Event Like List
Downtown Portland has been looking pretty bleak thanks to COVID, but that may not always be the case. Join the Portland Parks Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Portland Art Museum, and Converge 45 for a lecture with designer, urbanist, and spatial justice activist Liz Ogbu on the future of the city.

MULTI-DAY

FILM

Chopped 420 Remind Like List
Portland-born, Los Angeles-based comedian Ron Funches will step in as the host of this weed-centric cooking show inspired by Food Network's Chopped. Like its predecessor, the contestants—all up-and-coming cannabis chefs—will be tasked with dishing up an appetizer, entrée, and dessert using unpredictable ingredients, this time with weed- or CBD-infused flair. Will the judges (chef Esther Choi, drag performer and cannabis activist Laganja Estranja, chef Luke Reyes, chef Sam Talbot, and comedian Tacarra Williams) get too stoned to form coherent sentences? Watch and see. 
(On-demand starting Tuesday)

SPLIFF Past Event Like List
As everyone's favorite day to smoke weed draws near, it's time for another installment of short cannabis-themed films made for and by stoners just like you! You'll have a grand old time watching the screenings themselves, but you'll be even more delighted by this year's live(streamed) viewing parties hosted by various dynamic weed-loving duos, from The Stranger's Chase Burns and Jasmyne Keimig to Seattle drag stars Cookie Couture and Betty Wetter to comedians Alyssa Yeoman and Erin Ingle. 
(Friday-Tuesday)

MUSIC

Journeys To Justice Past Event Like List
Portland Opera presents compositions about love, justice, and the Black American experience, including Jasmine Barnes's "Songs for the African Violet" and Carlos Simon's Night Trip.
(Friday-Wednesday)

THEATER & PERFORMANCE

OBT RAW Past Event Like List
Catch Oregon Ballet Theatre excerpts of well-known works by George Balanchine, William Forsythe, August Bournonville, Nacho Duato, OBT Resident Choreographer Nicolo Fonte, and Marius Petipa, as well as behind-the-scenes footage of rehearsals.
(Thursday-Saturday)

VISUAL ART

Calm Under the Waves in the Blue of My Oblivion Past Event Like List
Raised in NYC by way of the USSR, Yulia Pinkusevich uses salvaged common materials to find an intersection between rural and urban economies. Check out her latest collection of drawings in this virtual exhibition.
(Thursday-Sunday)

Partial Permutation Past Event Like List
Gender non-conforming artists Ebenezer Galluzzo, Tabitha Nikolai, Pace Taylor, and Maya Vivas show work about identity and existence in this mixed-media online show.
(Thursday-Tuesday)