In the past few months Art Scatter’s chief correspondent, Martha Ullman West, has been (as The New Yorker likes to say about its own correspondents) far-flung. We could tell you how much flinging she’s been up to, but it seems more appropriate to let her tell you herself. We will mention, however, that one of [...]
By Bob Hicks
Bless me, reader, for I have sinned.
For 40 years Moses wandered in the wilderness. And for roughly the same amount of time I have stumbled through the landmines of contemporary culture, wearing the sackcloth of the most extreme form of penitent journalist.
I have been a critic.
Well, apparently I have. That’s what everyone tells [...]
By Laura Grimes (with help from the Large Smelly Boys)
Shhhh! Be vewy vewy qwiet! Sneak attack in progress.
It’s a big day in the Scatter household, when patriarch Mr. Scatter is feted (not fetid). So the Large Smelly Boys and I are hijacking the blog for a surprise post. The fun part [...]
By Bob Hicks
At Oregon Music News, Dot Rust has been shouting an alarm over what she considers an administration/board attempt to shut down or severely curtail the internationally lauded music program at Mt. Hood Community College. She’s written two long posts about it (the one above is the second, and links to the first), and [...]
THE MORNING AFTER — It’s a rare and wonderful thing to be in a room filled with love the way that Lincoln Performance Hall was last night for the celebration of Jim Caputo’s life. The hall was filled to overflowing, which must have meant about 700 people were on hand for a night of music, [...]
By Bob Hicks
One night after the Tony Awards (hurrah for The Normal Heart) Portland’s own celebration of the year’s best stuff onstage, the Drammy Awards, happens tonight at the Crystal Ballroom just off West Burnside.
In a season of roughly 125 eligible shows, plenty of good work has hit the stage, from Profile’s Great Falls way [...]
By Bob Hicks
Shoving Deborah Jowitt out the door because she’s not “negative” enough is like firing God because he took that seventh day off. It’s short-sighted, presumptuous, and bound to come back and bite you in the butt.
So, ouch to Village Voice arts editor Brian Parks, who pulled the plug — at least, in the [...]
Richard Barnes
By Bob Hicks
It’s Friday, the morning’s dead trees have been delivered, and they bear proof that Mr. Scatter’s been a busy beaver lately (although he does not claim responsibility for chewing through the timber that became the newsprint that bears his words).
Friday’s A&E magazine of The Oregonian includes Beautiful Bodies, Mr. Scatter’s cover story [...]
By Bob Hicks
Mr. and Mrs. Scatter spent Friday night — or at least a short part of it — at BodyVox for the opening performance of Obstacle Allusions, Eric Skinner’s new half-hour dance for Skinner/Kirk Dance Ensemble.
It was the second recent new contemporary dance piece in town in which the music was an essential and [...]
UPDATE: Jeff Jahn, who has followed the fortunes of YU from its beginnings, has kicked in with his own take at PORT. He argues that YU has “a general art world sophistication several tiers above” some earlier attempts at a nationally linked contemporary arts center, but also that it is severely harmed [...]