Year: 2016

Sweaty and Dazed

Electronica sensation Pretty Lights

Music
Pretty Lights

When I listen to EDM, I’m brought back to freshman year when I was introduced to drugs, dub-step and sardine-packed shows. That’s when I first heard the badass-ery of Pretty Lights, an electronica sensation created by Derek Vincent Smith. Smith started Pretty Lights in 2004. He takes samples — mostly bits of songs from ’70s soul or ’90s hip hop — and laces them up with his own sound effects. Add in some rad light displays and MDMA and, voilà, you’ve got the Pretty Lights experience. Continue reading →

Burnt Berners fired-up over corporate tax measure

News

Some Bernie Sanders supporters wept as they watched Hillary Clinton snag her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention this summer. Months of hard grassroots toil erased. Millions of dreams squashed. Many diehard Berners balk at the notion of another Clinton presidency. And of course Trump is a non-starter. The quadrennial scrum for the Oval Office has devolved into a dog and pony show of oligarchic proportions. Continue reading →

Springfield Students go to Nepal

Students will hike the first stages of the Everest Trek and visit the U.S. Embassy

News
A3 students headed to Nepal include: Ethan Varner, Satysha Whitworth, Zia Lasky, Katie Hibbard, Morning Glory Ritchie, Maia Mendelssohn and Mason Wingert. Not present Jesus Hewitt. Photo Courtesey Ed Mendelssohn.

Students from the Academy of Arts and Academics (A3), a public high school in Springfield, will head to Nepal in October to volunteer, hike the first stages of the Everest Trek and visit the U.S. Embassy. Mike Fisher, the school’s director and a former volunteer with the Peace Corps, and Ed Mendelssohn, the school’s managing director, say they started planning the trip last winter after a visit to the Tacoma School of the Arts.  Continue reading →

County Calls a Temporary Halt to Controversial Changes to Petition Process

News

The Lane County Board of Commissioners voted 5-0 on Aug. 30 to call a six-month halt on its efforts to change its initiative petition process, Commissioner Pete Sorenson tells EW.  The initiative petition process allows the public to collect signatures and get measures on the ballots, such as efforts to ban aerial sprays of pesticides or genetically modified crops — two issues that local group Community Rights Lane County has been working on. Continue reading →

A Queen for the Books

The 2016 SLUG queen talks bar clowns, books and baby dolls

News

Do you remember what your favorite color was when you were a kid? Winter Peterson remembers hers: multicolor. “I saw that on a container of glitter when I was a kid and thought it was one color,” she says. “But no – it was all colors.” Since then, her worldview hasn’t gotten any less colorful. Peterson calls herself a “recreational, loud, gaudy person,” and she can often be seen around Eugene in drag or even a clown costume. “People don’t expect to see clowns out at the bars,” she says. Continue reading →

I wanted to volunteer at the hospital, but they said I was too young

Happening People
Serena Orsinger

  At age 15, Serena Orsinger has spent 10 years in French immersion classrooms, from kindergarten at Fox Hollow/Charlemagne through middle school at Roosevelt, to South Eugene’s International High School. She’s front row center in the photo. As a freshman last year, she was looking for a way to get involved in the community beyond school. “I wanted to volunteer at the hospital,” she says, “but they said I was too young.”  Continue reading →

It’s the season for senior photos

Slant

• It’s the season for senior photos. South Eugene High School senior Jillian Henry headed over to Mount Pisgah for some shots of her in the wild. She got more than she bargained for when a naked man and his dog photobombed her shots. She posted them on Twitter with the comment “Love my senior pics.” The images have been retweeted more then 25,000 times and gotten more than 70,000 likes, and the story has been picked up at Jezebel, Buzzfeed, The Oregonian and in the UK. Way to start your senior year with a bang!  Continue reading →

The fall dance season kicks off when MEDGE

Dance
Nick Davis and Nika Jin of track town swing club

The fall dance season kicks off when MEDGE (Middle Eastern Dance Guild of Eugene) presents The Hafla Players. “The all-ages show features a new performance group — the Hafla Players, 10 MEDGE musicians and dancers under the direction of John Zeké,” MEDGE’s Denise Gilbertson says. Catch the action, and a pizza, 8:30 pm, Sept. 16, at Cozmic downtown, 199 W. 8th Avenue. See medge.org. Continue reading →