By Bob Hicks
When we talk about culture here at Art Scatter, we like to think it’s almost as wide as life. It could be historical, or political, or social, or personal, or purely aesthetic. It might be Madame Butterfly, Puccini’s opera about a fatal clash of moral sensibilities, which returns to the Portland Opera stage [...]
By Bob Hicks
Hal Holbrook’s back in town on Saturday, riding the horse of his magnificent one-man show Mark Twain Tonight!, and even as Holbrook noses up on 87 years old it’s bound to be a helluva show.
A couple of weeks ago I chatted on the phone for about an hour with him (Holbrook, not Twain, [...]
Thomas Nast/1871
By Bob Hicks
The national political season is getting good and nasty these days, and we here at Art Scatter World Headquarters are pretty pumped about it: blood sports do that to us.
We’re especially excited about the literary possibilities. In recent days we’ve added some astute veteran political observers to our stable of correspondents, all [...]
By Bob Hicks
I’ve just put up this post at Oregon Arts Watch about two extraordinary feats of endurance: Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton’s star-crossed quest in 1914-17 to trek 1,800 miles across the Antarctic continent, and Lawrence Howard’s captivating three-hour solo telling of the tale at Portland Story Theater. Give it a read, and the next [...]
By Bob Hicks
Seeing it as our duty to help sort out this most perplexing of civic seasons, we here at Art Scatter World Headquarters have hired our first political correspondent. He’s a veteran newspaperman named Eugene Field, and we’re proud to add him to our mix.
Here is Mr. Field’s first dispatch, filed from the late [...]
By Bob Hicks
Something’s Got a Hold on Me. Etta James, that incredible American voice, died today from cancer at age 73, and although she urged us to “Don’t Cry Baby,” a few collective tears are going to tumble down.
Etta touched on blues and country and rhythm & blues and soul – pretty much most of [...]
By Bob Hicks
Over at Oregon Arts Watch I’ve posted Ready, aim, fire: on Portland stages, a shot in the dark. It’s an account of my weekend adventures viewing the premieres of Joseph Fisher’s (I Am Still) the Duchess of Malfi at Artists Rep and Jason Wells’s The North Plan at Portland Center Stage, plus Allison [...]
Art Scatter chief correspondent Martha Ullman West sends along this note about the Portland memorial service for Mark Goldweber, the founding ballet master of Oregon Ballet Theatre, who died last month from lymphoma at age 53. Goldweber, who made and kept many friends here, moved on to ballet-master positions at the Joffrey Ballet and then [...]
By Bob Hicks
In Down the rabbit hole: Melody Owen makes a book, which is new on Oregon Arts Watch, I tell the tale of … well, of Melody Owen making a book. Actually, it’s more about the publication party for the Portland artist’s new book, Looking Glass Book, at Publication Studio, in a tuckaway corner [...]
By Bob Hicks
What’s been cooking lately in the Scatter kitchen? Well, a lovely baked dressing made up mostly of mushrooms, celery, onions and leftover bread slices (Mrs. Scatter’s clean-out-the-fridge creation). And another batch of baklazhannia ikra, or “poor man’s caviar,” an addictive eggplant/tomato/onion/pepper relish that William Grimes discovered recently in one of those great old [...]