The royal whatzis
The Cherry Orchard at Artists Repertory Theatre
Noble Viola on Opus at Portland Center Stage
Brian Libby on the failed Columbia River Crossing
Portland Taiko tells a tale
James E. McWilliams on eating locally and globally
Portland Taiko. Rich Iwasaki/2009
By Bob Hicks
We’re given to understand some sort of white-tie wedding is taking place [...]
By Bob Hicks
So it’s happened. Oregon’s House of Representatives has officially endorsed the Code of the West, a business opportunity ridin’ hard out of the hills of Texas into the hearts of legislators from Cheyenne to Salem. A trademarked moral compass, as it were, ready-made for tryin’ times. Keep ‘er simple. Keep ‘er pure. And [...]
By Bob Hicks
Scatter friends Karen and John got home a few weekends ago from Hells Canyon Mule Days in Enterprise, in the Wallowa Valley of far eastern Oregon, and it got us to thinking about the big wide stretches and the places in America where work is still manual and landbound and practical in a [...]
By Bob Hicks
Today Mr. Scatter donned his reporter cap with the story Maryhill Conceives a Broader Canvas in The Oregonian. In case you missed the print version (which has lots of cool pictures, including one of Queen Marie of Romania dedicating the Maryhill Museum of Art in 1926, and another of original mansion owner Sam [...]
By Bob Hicks
The best way to see the art of Lee Kelly, if you’re not lucky enough to visit his studio and expansive sculpture garden near Oregon City, is to hop on the bus or your bike or just start hoofing it around Portland. The city and its suburbs are speckled with his large public [...]
By Bob Hicks
Once again the fates have flung Mr. Scatter to the far reaches of Ecotopia, where yet another dismal drive through the 90-mile sprawl of the great Seattle megalopolis has underscored how little eco is left in this topia of ours. They paved Paradise and put up a freeway that’s a parking lot.
Well, sometimes [...]
By Bob Hicks
Mr. Scatter has been traveling the byways of America quite a lot of late, and by a quirk of fate he found himself in an open pavilion in Sun Valley, Idaho, on the eve of September 11, listening to Salman Rushdie talk about Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Sarah Palin, the [...]
By Bob Hicks
Mrs. Scatter shovels a tiny spoon beneath my nose.
“You need to taste this new mustard,” she commands.
What’s this? New mustard? Mrs. Scatter’s been making the same mustard for so long it’s plastered on our sensory memories like the one tattoo you don’t regret. It’s Old Faithful, the house standard, the creme de condiments. [...]
By Martha Ullman West
Art Scatter is always pleased as punch to accept an essay from its chief correspondent and occasional world traveler, Martha Ullman West. MUW has been a busy woman lately. Herewith we offer her personal recollections of the late, great Lena Horne; her thoughts on the swan song of dancer Gavin Larsen, retiring [...]
By Laura Grimes
Mrs. Scatter’s final thoughts and look back — and a chance to add what she missed before:
Forget coherence. Forget cohesion. Stutter and start is the only way to blog live about the opera. People talk and joke and all that is part of the cheerful scene, but forget trying to put two words [...]