Culture

Art is as art does, and sometimes we find it in the most unusual of places: Wallace Shawn, for instance, brought lower Manhattan audiences into posh bourgeois apartments to stage The Fever; Wayne Coyne gathered Flaming Lips fans into an Austin parking garage for his Zaireeka boom-box experiment; and another Wayne — Wayne Vajgert of Springfield — is hoping local art aficionados are willing to wander outside the gallery scene in order to view his growing collection of outlaw art.

Where do your loyalties lie? With your spouse? Your sex? Your child?  

When an 11-year-old boy gets a few teeth smashed out by a stick-wielding playmate, the appropriate thing for his conscientious parents to do is to invite the offender’s parents over for a conversation, maybe some clafouti and a drafted statement of the incident. In this comedy-of-no-manners, the polite conference quickly devolves into a rum-soaked battle of ego where well-heeled family folk are exposed for the flesh-eating Neanderthals they really are.

I know I’m supposed to be writing about wine, and, oddly enough, a lot of people are interested in learning about the various wines. I’ll get around to wine. Promise. But these are ominous times, and as a hedge against what I fear might be an election that proves that super-rich oligarchs can simply buy a democracy and loot the public treasury with impunity, I’m trying to prepare myself.

I’m trying to learn Republican. It ain’t easy. The language is strange and the logic is twisted.

Local rockers Cosmic Jelly are sort of an elusive band these days. They’re fading away into fond memory and separating officially, but it wouldn’t be like them to go out without a bang. On Sept. 2 the group will have a screening and CD release day for their new video, “Let’s Talk About Poop,” which is designed to knock the shit (or should I say poop?) out of your ass.

As the annual Burning Man Festival approaches, Justin Lanphear prepares The Triceratops for its 385-mile journey to Black Rock City, Nev. The repurposed Frito-Lay delivery van that now looks like a prehistoric beast is Eugene’s most prominent art car.

“About six years ago I realized I could buy a house, or I could build The Triceratops,” Lanphear says. “I realized that if I bought a house, I would never build the triceratops. So I found out where to get these decommissioned delivery vans, and I went for it.”

What better way to punctuate this beautiful, hot summer than with pride? The Eugene/Springfield 2012 Pride Festival, that is. The opening ceremonies start at noon on Saturday, Aug. 11, at Alton Baker Park ($5 sug. don.), and the celebration continues until 7pm. Trai La Trash and Daphne Bertha Storm will emcee, while bands from Wetsock to Sugar Tits keep the party hopping. The Imperial Sovereign Court of the Emerald Empire — featuring Miss Gay Pride Oregon 2012, among others — struts its stuff at 3pm, building anticipation for its Aug.

On March 4, 1513, the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, on a valedictory commission from King Ferdinand, set out from Puerto Rico to find the rumored “Islands of Benimy.” He found Florida instead. It was only posthumously that writers began mythologizing de Leon’s voyage as a search for the mythical Fountain of Youth. What he was really searching for was gold, slaves and other imperial booty.

If artist Martha Bowen could be described with only one word, that word might be “humble.” Along with her modest and genuine character, Bowen’s captivatingly beautiful watercolor paintings are true to her unassuming nature. She’s traveled the world and brought images home for us to enjoy. 

Originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, Bowen now calls Eugene home, though her Latin roots seep through the canvas with vibrant colors and life. 

To all the people who grow and sell vegetable starts, thank you! Those little trays of baby plants, locally grown and ready to go, are well worth the money for a casual gardener like me. I love eating out of the garden, but there are only two of us. I don’t need to grow a heap of food, and I don’t have a lot of time to harvest and put food by. Besides, I like to support the local farmers, who grow many things far better than I can.

Just because you’re done with the past doesn’t mean the past is done with you. This is especially the case when it comes to love, as saloon manager Rose Waters  (Amanda Lawrence) learns in The Silver Spur Saloon, the inaugural production by the Phoinix Players at their newly opened Red Cane Theatre.

After months of scouring, scrubbing and then completely refurbishing the former Asian market at 1075 Charnelton, right next door to Ring of Fire, the hard-working troupe Phoinix Players at last have cut the ceremonial ribbon and opened the doors to Eugene’s latest addition to the theater community. Red Cane Theatre inaugurates its first season — its first everything, in fact — with a spectacular dinner-theater musical written by Red Cane director Mary Hulls and entitled Silver Spurs Saloon.