Whats-Happening: Page 500

It’s About Time – August 2015

About Time

This year August is set up with a glorious week of stargazing. The Perseid meteor shower will send hundreds, maybe thousands, of shooting stars across the sky during the second week of August. Peak shower activity will be August 11-13. The best meteor watching will be in the hours before dawn, when the constellation Perseus rises from the northeastern horizon. What makes this year’s shower likely to be spectacular is that nearly moonless nights coincide with the peak streaking. Continue reading →

Add Freeks and Stir

Culture

I can’t think of a more queer place to spend my Friday night — save re-animating Liberace for a wild cavort on the Riviera — than Freek Nite at Cowfish in downtown Eugene. “Whatever Freek Nite means to you, go for it. There’s no wrong way,” says Rhea Della Vera, who produces and promotes the weekly dance party that runs 9 pm to close. Continue reading →

Cheeseburgers and Rainbows

The author reflects on coming out as bisexual in middle age

Culture

Bisexuals don’t eat cheeseburgers. This thought had never crossed my mind in 20 years of advocating for LGBTQ people and issues. But having come out of the closet as a bisexual just a few days earlier, it seemed like this might be true. I came out at a high school staff meeting in 2014 after my fellow teachers had spent an hour debating the nature of LGBTQ students. Earnest but clueless, many of them were discussing something they knew nothing about. My favorite: “I don’t know why it’s such a big deal who you have sex with.” Continue reading →

Tickled Pink

Local comedian Beth Pinkerton tells Eugene how it is

Culture
Beth Pinkerton

Beth Pinkerton’s first time performing standup comedy was in March. As of June 28, she was opening for a national act — comedian Jen Kirkman — at Cozmic, where Pinkerton brought down the house with her outsider views of Eugene. It takes some serious chutzpah to tell a Chaco-wearing, CSA-subscribing crowd of the hippie noblesse that you buy your produce at Walmart, you eat at Taco Bell and that you, Eugene, can go fuck yourself already.  Continue reading →

Trust the Unknown Thing

Post-marriage equality ruminations on what’s next for LGBTQ rights

Culture
Caitlin Mackenzie

On the morning of Friday, June 26, my girlfriend coaxed me awake, smiling, eager for me to hear the decision from SCOTUS that state-level bans on same-sex marriage were declared unconstitutional. In our groggy relief, we held each other quietly, then got ready for the day. It was hot — three-digits hot — and we were on our way to a friend’s wedding rehearsal dinner. Our phones buzzed with texts and updates. My ex-husband called, excitedly asking me if I heard the news.  It was a day of unadulterated positivity and a rainbow-ed Facebook. Continue reading →

God’s Grapes

Drink

In our lab at Wine Investigations, Mole and I were wilting. Temps outside, even at the 17th floor of the old high-rise, reached 105 degrees; inside wasn’t much cooler, though we keep all the wines comfy and cozy, in dark fridges, at 54 degrees, warming some, cooling others, before testing.  For months, we’ve been searching for growers in Oregon who are experimenting with Italian varietals — sangiovese, nebbiolo, dolcetto, barbera and others. Continue reading →

Positively Bipolar

Film

Anyone who has dealt up close and personal with mental illness will tell you it can be an unmitigated hell — a black hole that devours solutions faster than they can be hatched. Families wrecked by schizophrenia and manic depression discover, all too quickly, that frustrated applications of love and discipline and pills and despair tend to come up empty in the face of a condition that, by its very definition, defies all reason. Continue reading →

Pickathon 2015

Music

Another year, another hot (OK, really hot) Pickathon. This fest continues to be a top EW pick for its perpetually diverse lineup, from old-timey jams to metal. How many chances are you going to get to see Leon Bridges perform in a barn? ’Nuff said. 1. Kamasi Washington photo by Todd Cooper Continue reading →