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“I show up and transform their living room into a sex toy store. Lots of samples, lots of testers,” Kim Marks says. Marks is the proprietor of Oregon’s As You Like It – The Pleasure Shop and she devotes many of her evenings to putting on PleasureWare Home Parties, showcasing the store’s many ecofriendly and ethical sex toys and products, from glass dildos to phthalate-free vibrators. Continue reading
San Francisco has the Castro, Seattle has Capital Hill, Portland has the Burnside Triangle. In a smaller city with no gay district, center or bar, Eugene is a difficult place for men to date. And for a university town, where the UO was voted number one in Campus Pride’s Climate Index of gay-friendly colleges, it is puzzling that there are no designated queer spaces off campus. Many people will tell you, “Go to G.L.A.M. Continue reading
Forget rabbits with pocket watches. Forget tea parties. Forget Alice in Wonderland. Work Dance Company director and choreographer Nathan Boozer wants to take you down another rabbit hole into his Wonderland, an upcoming Feb. 15 show at the Hult Center that takes a look through the hip-hop looking glass at lands filled with music, butterflies, candy, zombies and Lady Gaga. Continue reading
At their best, each year’s Oscar-nominated short films are a chance to see something new, or unusual, or unlikely. Short films can take different chances with structure, rely less heavily on traditional narrative or capture a moment rather than laying out a whole tale. But this year’s crop of live action shorts is a bit of a letdown in this regard: They tend toward the traditional, are predictably heart-wrenching or fall a little short in one aspect while succeeding in others. Continue reading
The numbers are in, says The New York Times: 2012 was the hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous U.S. 2012 also turned out to be the second-worst on record for climate extremes, amassing 11 weather disasters that exceeded $1 billion in costs, including tornadoes, freak storms, floods and catastrophic drought. Globally, the decade from 2000 to 2010 was the warmest on record. Nobody who is under 28 has lived through a month of global temperatures that fell below the 20th century average, because the last such month was February 1985. Welcome to a warmer world. Continue reading
Classical music is often rightly accused of ignoring the here and now. Fortunately, many younger composers are using classical and postclassical forms to help us understand the sometimes-unpleasant realities of the world we live in. UO grad student and award-winning composer Ethan Gans-Morse directs the Ambrosia Ensemble, which will perform the world premiere of his new opera-oratorio, The Canticle of the Black Madonna, at the University of Oregon’s Beall Concert Hall in a free performance Feb. 16. Continue reading
Valentine’s Day (or Forced Romance Day, Singles Awareness Day — whatever you prefer) and the proceeding weekend are packed with excellent shows, so grab your schmoopy or your sweet self and paint the town red. Kick off Feb. 14 with the Shook Twins ($13 adv., $15 door) and From Cole: With Love: A Valentine’s Day Cabaret (Feb. 14-17, $12) at Corvallis’ The Majestic Theatre and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony at WOW Hall (see music shorts). Continue reading
Eugene is about to swallow a whole lot of Austin, Tex., grunge-rock vigor; The Blind Pets are inspired by a DIY attitude and a complete lack of concern or sympathy for bullshit rock ’n’ roll. “Rock and roll on a bigger level is taking a dump,” says guitarist and vocalist Joshua Logan, referencing prog rock bands like Muse as the enemy to true rock. “People think of Muse as rock and it’s just not.” Continue reading
Sometimes it really is all in a name: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Since the early ’90s Bone Thugs have blended straight-up thuggery with some sweet Temptations-style harmonies, creating one of the most distinctive rap/soul hybrids of the hip-hop era; all the while maintaining a street edge separating them from other ’90s neo doo-woppers like Boyz II Men. Continue reading
It makes sense Dead Prez are in town for the UO “Social Justice, Real Justice Conference.” The New York-based hip-hop group has long taken on politics in its work; themes of socialism and social justice, protest of corporate control of the media (particularly hip-hop record labels) and pan-Africanism have been threads running through the group since they began in the late ’90s. Continue reading