Loyal readers know that Art Scatter is fiercely in favor of protecting Oregon Ballet Theatre from the financial wolves that are nipping at its heels, eager to drag it down and devour it for a mid-recession munch. I’ve made the case that this is Portland’s finest theatrical troupe, a company on the rise nationally, and [...]
One of the advantages in this Day of the Download to maintaining actual bookshelves is that you browse through them now and again, looking for things you’ve read before that you might want to read again. I’m a proponent of re-reading, and I’ve come to trust my sense of when it’s time to pick up [...]
My neighbor invited me to check her drawers. For a male part.
Actually, she has just one drawer. Labeled “hose parts.” Where she claims, and I quote, “numerous male and female parts are happily having a menage a huit ou neuf — you might even say an orgy.”
I don’t speak French, so that basically meant to [...]
Thenkewveddymuch. I couldnadunnit without all the little people.
Oops. Wrong award ceremony.
Monday night (a night after the Tonys and a very long distance, psychically, from the glamfest called the Oscars) Portland theater folk will gather for the 30th Drammy Awards, the annual celebration of the best and brightest of the local theater season. It’s a good [...]
It’s a big weekend in Portland art. Not only are most of the city’s commercial galleries showing new stuff after their First Thursday and First Friday openings, but the Portland Art Museum also has a couple of big openings on Saturday, and another opens Saturday in the pavilion of the Japanese Garden. The Scatter brain [...]
A brief report from today’s Junior Rose Parade, where the arts were alive and well.
Yes, long before the parade started, when people were still scarce, a driver held his hand out of a passing van and released two butterflies.
Yes, men do wear kimonos.
No, Mayor Sam Adams wasn’t to be seen.
Yes, City Commissioner Amanda Fritz walked [...]
“I stare at the gleaming black surface, at the red soil beneath my feet, at the dry eucalyptus leaves, curled into the shapes of letters as if they had been shaken from a tray of type.”
- Cees Nooteboom, Lost Paradise
This is a story without pictures. [...]
Anna Griffin’s column today in The Oregonian about poetry disappearing from buses makes my heart hurt. I love those poems, those found sparks of life, and I will sorely miss them if they disappear. Often, when I was lost in thought on the bus, I would spy one of those poems and read it over [...]
“Why are you heating water?” my husband asked me with a note of alarm in his voice.
He associates hot water with tea. And he associates tea with sore throats.
“Because I’m … uh … ”
How do I tell my husband that I’m heating water because our bathtub drain is plugged? As I shower, the water slowly [...]
You’ve read here and elsewhere about the deep financial hole Oregon Ballet Theatre has stumbled into. Scatter partner Barry Johnson broke the news in The Oregonian last week that the company needs $750,000, fast, to keep from going under. The problem isn’t getting customers in the seats — OBT’s concerts are extremely popular — but [...]