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

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

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

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 

Electronica Does Emo

Ryan Hemsworth

The Ryan Hemsworth show at WOW Hall has been canceled. Canadian electronica producer Ryan Hemsworth describes his most recent single, “Snow in Newark,” as something he made to “get back to my first love, emo music.” This may come as a shocking change of pace to those accustomed to hearing Hemsworth either throw down thick, hawkish hip-hop remixes or candy-coated, J-poppy originals.  Continue reading 

Inspired and Insolent

Celestial Shore

“We have some great friends from Eugene,” says Sam Owens of Brooklyn-based indie-rock trio Celestial Shore. “All of them are wonderful people and talented musicians. There must be something in the water.” Last spring Celestial Shore opened for indie-rock critical darlings Deerhoof. Now Celestial Shore are coming to Eugene in support of 2014’s Enter Ghost, a collection of guitar-centric indie rock blending the sweet, British-invasion flower power of The Zombies with the taut aggressiveness of ’90s bands like The Pixies.  Continue reading 

Duck Talk

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 

Orphan Saves the Day

Jenny Parks as Molly, Kenady Conforth as Annie and Tony Joyner as Daddy Warbucks

There’s something fuzzy and bittersweet about that old populist daydream of an adorable orphan so possessed by optimism that her mere presence can sand down the rough edges of a capitalist tycoon and compel an embattled president to launch the New Deal. If that’s not a political fairy tale for a bygone era, I don’t know what is. Continue reading