Whats-Happening: Page 571

Dazed and Confused

Film

James Franco is a fascinating character. With his chiseled good looks and bedroom eyes, he is genetically perched for sex-symbol status, and certainly Hollywood yearns to dip him in those spangled shallows. But Franco, as part of Seth Rogen and Jason Segel’s Freaks and Geeks mob, resists the most earnest superfluities of celebrity; his artistic talent is tempered by self-deprecation and suspicion, which keeps him on his toes — witness the masochistic pleasure he takes in ripping his reputation in This is the End. Continue reading →

Big Ambitions, Tiny Venue

Music
Gibraltar

New bands play lots of strange places: bedrooms, basements and bars (empty or, preferably, full). On June 12, Seattle’s fledgling post-punk quartet Gibraltar plays Eugene’s Tiny Tavern, a venue that is, well … pretty tiny.  But it’s immediately apparent from their latest record, The New Century, that Gibraltar (featuring current and former members of Afghan Whigs, Visqueen, Exohxo and Spanish for 100) have arena-sized ambitions.  Continue reading →

Free as a Bird

Music
Gabrielle Louise

For her latest project, The Bird in My Chest, singer-songwriter Gabrielle Louise wanted to do something different. “I had my heart set on releasing a book of short stories and poems alongside a collection of music,” Louise says. “So I took everything I had composed in the same time frame — songs, poems and short stories — and I published a booklet to accompany the CD.” Continue reading →

Dynamic Duo

Music
Tyler Fortier and Beth Wood

If EW’s annual Best of Eugene contest included the category “Most likely to perform at Austin City Limits,” local singer-songwriters Tyler Fortier and Beth Wood would surely tie for first. Wood, a native Texan, says she’d jump at the opportunity to play the famous Austin, Texas-based music festival; Fortier admits he might prefer to appear online in an installment of NPR’s intimate Tiny Desk Concerts. Continue reading →

Hail the King, Buzzo

Music
King Buzzo

Excerpt from phone interview with King Buzzo of the Melvins: Me: Hello, may I speak with Buzz Osborne, please? Buzz: That’s me. Me: Hey, this is Rick Levin from the Eugene Weekly. Buzz: Never heard of it. And that, folks, is punk rock in a nutshell. Continue reading →

The Beautiful Game

Sports

After Charles Miller brought two soccer balls with him from Scotland to Brazil in 1894, the game caught on like wildfire. Soccer has become a defining characteristic of this young, diverse nation, which often identifies itself as o país do futebol (“the country of soccer”). Alex Bellos, former South America correspondent for The Guardian, concluded that “football gives Brazilians a feeling of national identity — citizenship, even — much more than anything else.”  Continue reading →

Ordinary People

OCT kicks off summer with an intimate New York musical

Theater
Tony Coslett, Trevor Eichhorn, Katie Worley and Shannon Coltrane in Ordinary Days.

Claire, Jason, Warren and Deb are just four ordinary New Yorkers, but their lives intersect in the most extraordinary ways as they search with classic longing for love and fulfillment in a very modern setting. Ordinary Days is a contemporary musical by up-and-coming American composer Adam Gwon. According to Charles Isherwood of The New York Times, “Mr. Gwon writes crisp, fluid and often funny lyrics that reflect the racing minds of the four New Yorkers on a nervous search for their immediate futures.” Continue reading →

World Naked Bike Ride is Saturday

Sports

The event we've all been waiting for… The World Naked Bike Ride is happening at 4:30 pm Saturday, June 14, and this year the ride was gather at 4 pm at the east end of Skinner Butte Park, just north of the Campbell Community Center. If you need a GPS, the rough address is 200 E. Cheshire. Continue reading →