Like so many great art forms, dance is a series of interlinked relationships and memories, a tradition that continually redefines and reinvents itself. It lives in the past, and the present, and the future, and its story is written in the memories and associations of open-hearted observers as well as the muscles of dancers and [...]
The smashing success of last Friday’s Dance United gala benefit notwithstanding, it’s a Grimm world out there right now for Portland’s arts organizations: There go Hansel and Gretel, trailing bread crumbs as they traipse into the thick of the woods, and here come the birds, pecking away at the crumbs so there’s no trail out [...]
“My breakfast over, I paid a visit to Professor Jameson and proposed to him to give an account of the habits of the Turkey Buzzard instead of the Wild Turkey. He appeared anxious to have either.”
-John James Audubon in his London journal (mid 1820s)
I finished the last book I carried [...]
When I was not quite 19 and in fall term of my sophomore year in college I returned home for Thanksgiving dinner, bringing a housemate with me. I’d been growing a beard since beginning of term, two months before.
At dinner (and beforehand, while bustling over the Brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes in the kitchen) my [...]
Call the health department. Plumbing disease is contagious.
We left town and all our drain problems behind and headed to the coast. I lugged everything into our tidy little place and made a bee-line to the bathroom when a guest* large smelly boy said, “Oh, that toilet is weird.”
I flushed it. It burbled back at me.
We [...]
I’ve been out of town but eagerly scanning for news on Dance United, Friday night’s gala benefit to help Oregon Ballet Theatre dig out of its financial hole. According to these front-line reports from Culture Jock at Culture Shock and Barry Johnson at Portland Arts Watch, it was boffo — an absolute night to remember.
And, [...]
Tonight is the gala Dance United in Portland, the all-star benefit to help get financially ailing Oregon Ballet Theatre out of its fiscal sinkhole, and under any other circumstances I would be there with bells, cheering the dancers on.
But on Wednesday the large smelly boys were paroled from a nine-month sentence in the Portland public [...]
dateline willow lake - Kum ‘N Go is gone, replaced (in name sign only) by Super X. In my South Dakota hometown the once “Ye Olde … Whatever” signs have been replaced by vintage-script “Whatever . . . Shoppe” ones. And I forget how delightful it is to name the surrounding towns: Letcher, Loomis, [...]
THE LATEST NEWS FROM OREGON BALLET THEATRE, which is struggling with a life-threatening deficit that has it feverishly trying to raise $750,000 by June 30 to keep from going out of business: The campaign hit the $524,000 mark by Wednesday. That morning OBT’s Erik Jones said 900 tickets were still available for Friday night’s gala [...]
I thought I was done with my impressive array of drain-cleaning implements after the previous plumbing panic.
I was going to stash them in the basement and let them collect dead spiders, but when I put the plastic bin at the top of the stairs it fell over. I peered around the corner in time to [...]