Wipeout

Henderson’s book explores the thrills and chills of Oregon’s pending tsunami

On a summer day, standing with your toes in the sun-warmed sand of an Oregon beach, you’d be hard pressed to look out across the expanse of the Pacific Ocean and feel anything resembling danger. But out in that ocean, where the water turns from glassy green to dark blue, lurks something powerful — and if you listen maybe you can hear it in the roar of the waves.  Continue reading 

Bright Lights, Big Country

Yona Appletree and Light At Play look to the future of OCF

Yona Appletree with light at play dome

As a child, Yona Appletree spent his summers at the Oregon Country Fair, helping his mother sell tie-dyed clothes — and he continued to do so as he matured, manning his mother’s booth until 2010. Appletree grew up at the Fair, watching it slowly change. Now, as a computer programmer specializing in interactive art, he wants to help the OCF evolve. “My earliest memories of the Fair are from about 1992,” Appletree says. “I was about 6 or 7 at the time; it was a little rougher, not in a bad way, but a little wilder.” Continue reading 

Where To Watch The  World Cup

The 2014 FIFA World Cup may be in progress a full continent away, but that doesn’t mean you can’t throw on your USA jersey and experience a sliver of the camaraderie and sporting atmosphere here in Eugene. Several local establishments should have more than enough soccer — ahem, futbol — on tap in the coming weeks to be your World Cup proxy.  Continue reading 

Cask Masters

Local brewers bring old-fashioned cask ale back to life

Plank Town Brewing’s John Crane pulls an ale while steve van rossem looks on. Right: A couple dines at Brewers Union Local 180.

The traditional cask-conditioned style of beer is very much alive, and you can see its influence growing in Oregon’s craft beer industry, where local brewers like Plank Town in Springfield and Oakridge’s Brewers Union Local 180 are making concentrated efforts to keep it a living force in the beer world — a time and place far from the English and European pubs where they were once the norm. Continue reading 

Activist to Speak on Suburban Woes

The American dream of suburbia is running out of road —at least according to Benjamin Ross, a Maryland-based author and transit activist. He will tackle this issue and more when he comes to town to speak on May 4, exactly two days after his latest book, Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism, hits the shelves. “The suburban value system that people used to assume was a superior way of living has reached a dead end,” says Ross. “It’s no longer a status symbol to have a lawn and a car.” Continue reading