Eugene Weekly : Calendar : 12.01.05

Lane Arts Council's December First Friday ArtWalk, led by Miriam Jordan of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, starts Friday evening at DIVA, where work by Harold Hoy, Jim Denney, Mike Walsh, Roger Weise and Renee Nelson is on display. Stop #2, Circle of Hands, shows "Sacred Nudes Celebrates the Divine Feminine," photography by Jason Couch. Stop #3, La Follette Gallery, presents the sixth Annual Benchmark Printmaker's Show. Stop #4, the Gallery at Opus6ix, closes out the walk with a show of art all under 12 inches in any direction (pictured). This month's walk also features the Downtown Holiday Party, for which many downtown merchants will be open late with music, art and food. See Friday Calendar.

A line-up of award-winning authors will be on hand to autograph books when the downtown Eugene Public Library opens its doors Saturday night for the sixth annual Authors & Artists Fair. Earlier this month Linda Crew of Corvallis won the Oregon Book Award for her historical novel, A Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon 1845. Crew will be joined at the Fair by her brother, Eugene author Bob Welch. Other Oregon Book Award honorees at the library fair include Lauren Kessler, Dorianne Laux, Maxine Scates and Alan Siporin. Two authors appearing Saturday, Shannon Applegate (Skookum, Living Among Headstones) and William Sullivan (Listening for Coyote), have written works selected for Literary Oregon: 100 Books 1800-2000, a list honoring books judged by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission to be among the most significant in the state's history. And on the topic of lists, all of Portland author Phillip Margolin's 11 legal thrillers have spent time on The New York Times bestseller list, including his most recent, Oregon Book Award finalist Lost Lake. Altogether, more than 40 authors and 25 artists will autograph and sell their works at the library. A portion of proceeds from the sales benefits the nonprofit Eugene Public Library Foundation. See Saturday Calendar.

The first time I heard Iris DeMent on the radio I had to pull my car over to the side of the road. Twenty seconds into the song — just two lovely lyrical lines of poetry gone by — and I knew it would be impossible to drive and listen at the same time. Five minutes later, I couldn't believe I had never heard of her before. It was 1998, and according to the radio announcer, her first album had come out in 1992. The song that had punched me out of traffic — "Walking Home" from The Way I Should — was nearly two years old. How could it be that she wasn't world famous? Now, in 2005, it might be fair to say that DeMent still resides mostly in the "best kept secrets" file, but it doesn't help that it took her eight years to release a follow-up album to The Way I Should. That album, Lifeline, is comprised of old gospel songs, deeply spiritual and more interested in how people find strength to abide than in promoting dogma. DeMent, who conveys more with a few words and a tiny hitch in her voice than many singers can with all the technique in their repertoire, plays the Jacqua Concert Hall this week. See Friday Calendar. — John Ginn