Culture: Page 224

Giftmas Wines

Drink

Christmas? Already? Light the lights, jingle those bells, let’s wassail all season long. It’s a love fest. Quick switch from giving thanks for our gifts, to giving gifts, with our thanks — and lots of love. Now, you might imagine that because you have a wine fiend on your gift list you have this one in the bag: Plunk for a jug of plonk, plop into glitzy bag, designate, done. Not so fast. True, there are thousands of decent wines in stores, and gobs of wine-related gadgets, but getting a wine gift just right can be challenging. Continue reading →

The Kryptonite Factor

Sports

Sports are funny. If folks in this country cared half as much about the political process as they do about football, we’d all be living in some elegant utopia right now. Even casual sports fans can hold a civil, intelligent discussion about the pros and cons of the nickel defense, but bring up Obamacare and most of us degenerate into retrograde morons, hurling incoherent epithets at each other. Politics these days have become a nightmare, but football — it’s our religion. And that’s sad. Continue reading →

The Queer Conundrum

Culture
John O'Malley

Post-punk. Post-war. Postmodern. Post-gender. Post-queer? With the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the recent state victories for marriage equality and a rising generation of people whose fluid identities don’t fit neatly into the he-she binary, we could be on the cusp of a post-queer moment, but that depends on whom you ask.  Continue reading →

Trash to Treasure, the Saturday Market Holiday Market makes old new again

Gift Guide
Dress fashioned out of T-shirt material by Kendra Brock

Artisans at the Saturday Market’s Holiday Market use anything from spider webs to pressed flowers when crafting their creations. Some are known especially for reusing materials to make something new. Recycling, upcycling, reusing — people have different names for it, but whatever you call it, the resulting products bear little resemblance to the “old” materials from which they came.  Continue reading →

Beat the Crowds, Shop Local Online

Gift Guide
Amy Clancy with her handcrafted creations.

I hate the holidays. No, that’s not quite it. I hate the shopping that comes along with the holidays. I hate circling the asphalt for parking spots. I hate bundling up against the cold, wind and rain, fighting crowds, waiting in line and feeling like I have to spend money I can’t afford to spend. Sometimes I even hate having to remember my reusable shopping bags.  One thing I love is supporting local artisans. Luckily there’s a way to avoid the holiday horrors and still shop locally, and it’s Etsy.  Continue reading →

Rent a Potted Christmas Tree and Plant It after the Holidays

Gift Guide

Purchasing a cut-down Christmas tree can be a sad ritual for the sustainability-minded celebrator, or for those who find their post-holiday disappointment embodied by the malnourished or petroleum-derived tree in the living room.  However, Willamette Valley residents have the option of doing something a little different — renting a potted, living tree from Portland-based The Original Potted Christmas Tree Company (TOPCTC) to be picked up later and planted by conservation groups in local parks and watersheds. Continue reading →

Duck Talk

Sports

What a difference a weekend makes in the fickle, fanatical world of college football, where the panic and pandemonium of winning and losing wreck havoc with all cool reckonings. It’s all so hard to grasp, much less parse and parlay. A single game can overthrow the whole shebang, sending the number-crunchers scrambling for a new paradigm. Not all that far back, for instance, the wily bookmakers in Vegas suddenly scooted the Oregon Ducks to odds-on favorites for a national title, deeming UO’s chances at 9-2 (22 percent), just above Alabama’s 5-1 (20 percent). Continue reading →