Arts: Page 367

They Dreamed a Dream

Les Miz dazzles at the ACE

Theater

On its surface, Les Misérables, the operatic adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel, can come across as a maudlin chain-yanker that nabs every low-hanging fruit it can reach, including issues of abject poverty, human degradation and the tragic death of a good-hearted prostitute. The show seems, in a way, beneath common dignity, if only because it strives so hard to achieve it. And because of this, people of high-aspiring intellect (snobs) tend to avoid Les Miz, ranking it on a level with Cats and other shitbird musicals by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Continue reading →

Arts Hound

Visual Arts

Cruise to downtown Springfield for Second Friday Art Walk (5 to 8 pm) and head straight to the Springfield Museum for The Cruz exhibit, showcasing the beauty of the automobile in honor of the 15th Annual Springfield Cruz car show. One piece focuses on the story of the late Eugene Hot Rodder Eric Sanders, who passed away in 2008, and whose friends subsequently spread his ashes across the Bonneville Salt Flats from a 1953 Studebaker. Continue reading →

Turn Back Time

Local author takes on aging

Books

Anybody out there in this youth-obsessed USA who wants to read yet another word about aging? Or, if we really are youth-obsessed, maybe we want to learn everything we can to slow the march away from youngness? That was Lauren Kessler’s gamble when she wrote Counterclockwise: One Midlife Woman’s Quest to Turn Back the Hands of Time (Rodale, 256 pages. $24.99). At the same time her seventh book of narrative nonfiction hit the market in the spring, Parade magazine, that popular panderer, featured a “Special Report on the Youth Hormone.” Yet another! Continue reading →

Storytellers

Film

Rarely has a film begun with a more perfect quote than the one that opens Stories We Tell. Borrowing a line from Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, Michael Polley says, “When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion … It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all.” Continue reading →

Day-To-Day Marseilles

Music

Matt Bishop, the lead singer of Hey Marseilles, likes to keep things free-flowing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the content found on the band’s latest release, Lines We Trace, which expands on the folk and orchestral elements found on their debut album, To Travels & Trunks, and incorporates heavy doses of dreamy pop-rock aesthetics a la Death Cab for Cutie.  Continue reading →

Back Beat

Music

Way to go, Eugene-area musicians. EW’s Next Big Thing racked up 113 submissions by 75 artists and bands. On to phase two: On an undisclosed day this week in an undisclosed location, NBT judges will gather to pick which 16 acts will move on to the semi-finals at the Lane County Fair July 26-28. Look for smoke signals and announcements in our July 11 issue.   Continue reading →

Southern Hospitality

Music

Imagine what a band called Diarrhea Planet sounds like. If you’re guessing juvenile pop-punk — an auditory equivalent of a Seth Rogen movie — you’re pretty spot-on. The Nashville, Tenn.-based group’s 2013 release Loose Jewels (out now on fellow Nashville garage-rockers JEFF The Brotherhood’s label Infinity Cat Recordings) is 10 blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em nuggets of Ramones-esque punk; each track on the record clocks in at 2 minutes or under, with shouted choruses and breakneck guitar solos delivered at breathless speed. Continue reading →

Red, White and Punk

Music

Whether you revere the red, white and blue, or just love a day off to drink a beer and eat a hot dog (real or tofu) — July 4 is a time to celebrate independence. And this year Eugene-based troublemakers PORK Magazine are putting the indie back in Independence Day with an all-day lineup of rock ‘n’ roll bands in The Whit. Continue reading →

Arts Hound

Visual Arts

Red, wine and blue! Art and the Vineyard (and Maude Kerns) turns 30! There aren’t many other events in the area that can rival the sheer scope of art at Alton Baker Park, July 4-6, with over 85 artist booths. Don’t miss the delicate koi fish watercolors of Susan Elle, the mystical photographic landscapes of Jack Kelly and the brilliantly whimsical illustrations of Erika Beyer. Continue reading →