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First impressions can be deceptive. Take, for instance, Joel and Ethan Coen, whose movies seem distinctly built to not be watched but re-watched. Usually, for me, the initial pass through a Coen brothers film proves a strangely tepid affair — The Big Lebowski and Brother, Where Art Thou? felt flat and disjointed the first time around — and it’s not until I return for a second and third look that things start to resonate and deepen. Continue reading
A search for escarole seed late last summer led me to the excellent website of Adaptive Seeds (adaptiveseeds.com). The seed they sent so promptly (for escarole “Diva” and a locally bred fava bean, “Aprovecho”) was terrific, delivering uniform, vigorous germination at a rate close to 100 percent. “Diva” has proved exceptionally cold-hardy, and the beans are growing strong. Continue reading
Some newsworthy concert announcements this week: On May 25, popular electro-dance act Disclosure launches Cuthbert Amphitheatre’s outdoor concert season. Let’s hope this means more relevant music comes through that beautiful venue this spring and summer. Tickets on sale now. Continue reading
Badi Assad comes from a distinguished Brazilian musical family, but she’s blazed new trails, not just as a guitarist (like her brothers Sergio and Odair) but also as a vocalist and body-and-vocal percussionist. Her musical vision broadened to embrace jazz, pop and world music, including collaborations with jazz giants John Abercrombie and Larry Coryell, as well as covers of U2, Bjork, Tori Amos and more. Continue reading
[Editor's note: This article has been updated to show the new time for the Heart of Eugene festival, which has been moved from Feb. 14 to Feb. 15] Continue reading
STRFKR frontman Josh Hodges thinks a good bit about living without a home — an intentional, rent-free kind of unhoused lifestyle: van dwellers, guys living out of old school buses. “There’s some baseball player who lives in his van,” Hodges explains. “It’s not even about a money thing; it just fits his lifestyle.” Continue reading
Nature is stirring from her winter rest. She begins leisurely with buds slowly expanding and showing light green in the cracks of the bud scales. Indian plum is the first to be noticed because its eye-level buds are so big and flowers burst from them by the middle of February. I keep a sharp eye on the snowberry bushes because their early spring leaves join the Indian plum for the earliest flush of green in the valley forest understory. Snowberry flowers are much later, however, so the spring buds are small. Pussy-willow buds show fuzz soon. Continue reading
Marijuana: controlled substance or religious sacrament? In December 2015, the Portland branch of the United States Postal Service (USPS) seized a 5-ounce package of marijuana mailed from Eugene by Joy Graves — the leader of the Cottage Grove branch of Oklevueha Native American Church (ONAC) — who says it was intended to help an ailing ONAC member in Ohio. Continue reading
Eugene: The World’s Greatest City for the Arts and Outdoors. That was Eugene’s, ahem, slightly overstated city slogan until 2010. The city then rolled it back to: Eugene: A Great City for the Arts and Outdoors. Never has the chasm between “the” and “a” been so wide. Continue reading
DanceAbility International will be featured on OPB’s Oregon Art Beat and the community is welcome to an open house and viewing party 6:30 to 8:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 4, at 576 Olive St., Suite 208, with the segment airing on TV at 8 pm. Continue reading