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You know him as the government employee with the most swagger (Tom Haverford, Parks and Recreation), the rambunctious, Oligocene-era rabbit pirate Squint (Ice Age: Continental Drift), the guy at James Franco’s party who gets kicked into hell’s sinkhole by Kevin Hart (This is the End) and the tagline-spewing hack comedian Raaaaaaaandy (Funny People). And, of course, just as standup comedian Aziz Ansari. Continue reading
Looking over the barre, I see Broadway wet with dawn dew, the morning foot traffic beginning to pick up. Standing there on my tippy-toes, knees bent, arms holding onto the ballet barre for balance, I’m in full “power leg” mode at Barre3. Luckily, the passersby can’t really see my sweaty struggle (I checked; the double windows provide a sort of one-way glass effect). This is good because my legs are starting to get the shakes — that sweet spot where the muscles are forced to surrender and reform. Continue reading
HPV aka human papilloma virus, can be as scary as it is common. About 40 strains of the disease are spread through sexual contact, the worst of them able to cause genital warts and cancer in the cervix, vagina, throat, penis and anus. Enter Gardasil, a vaccine the FDA approved in 2006. It’s been shown to protect against types 6, 11, 16 and 18 of the disease, which cause the majority of cervical cancer and genital warts. (A previously introduced vaccine protected against some cancers but not genital warts.) Continue reading
Meditation is not just some hippie trend or a simple means of relaxation. UO emeritus professor and researcher of psychology Michael Posner found that it can reduce smoking habits, and UO Substance Abuse Prevention Program teacher George Baskerville says it improves attention and helps practitioners better connect with others and the world around them. Continue reading
When a fellow EW staffer and I decided to take advantage of our YMCA memberships last December, we experienced the smug satisfaction of being ahead of the New Year’s resolution crowd; however, neither of us were particularly familiar with gym etiquette or protocol, and on our first day we hopped onto a few elliptical machines, pressing buttons and uncertainly moving the pedals as the panel instructed us. Continue reading
Catch a cozy eve of tunes at Sam Bond’s 9:30 pm Friday, March 28, with Eugene’s swampy, New Orleans-tinged foursome The Long Hello and Spokane’s achy-breaky folk rock outfit the Marshall McLean Band. If you can peel your eyes away from the stage, check out the mystical paintings of Jayme Vineyard for Last Friday Art Walk. Continue reading
Ryan Lella of Portland’s A Happy Death loves vintage garage rock like The Beau Brummels, The Sonics and The 13th Floor Elevators. The songwriter is also into stuff by Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall — contemporary artists leading the Bay Area’s recent garage and psychedelic rock revival: a movement that seems to be catching on up in Portland as well. “Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees kick ass!” says Lella, who sings and plays guitar in A Happy Death. “They totally reinforce how stoked we are to play the kind of music we do.” Continue reading
As MF Doom once said, rap these days is like a pain up in the neck. Seriously, the ratio of intelligent lyricists to not-exactly-lyricists-at-all leans heavily toward the latter in this time of ours. (“You a stupid ho, you, you stupid ho, etc.”) That’s why Bun B’s a cool drink of water, even if he is a crusty old G. He’s been at it since 1987, and cut his teeth as one half of UGK (Underground Kingz), who had their first major release in 1992. To understand why this is impressive, it is important that we look at rap’s evolution as a whole. Continue reading
These days, we’ve traded fliers for Facebook and ’zines for blogs, but the amalgamated forces of bullshit that spawned early-’80s American hardcore remain essentially unchanged: consumerism, alienation, angst. For the past 35 years, pioneering punk band D.O.A. has confronted these forces with a steady stream of conscientious hardcore. Hailing from Vancouver, B.C., and fronted by the legendary Joey Shithead (aka Joe Keithly), D.O.A. Continue reading
“We might play a piece 30, 40, 50 — sometimes 100 times,” eighth blackbird flutist Tim Munro told me a few years ago. That dedication to rehearsal allows the Grammy-winning, Chicago-based new music sextet to memorize its pieces, which “enables us to have interactions within the group that I never thought were possible in chamber music,” the Australian Munro said, to focus not just on getting the notes but on communicating the music to the audience. Continue reading