Eugene Weekly : Calendar : 06.22.06

What a total bonanza weekend for animals at the Lane County Fairgrounds! Specifically, it's fiber animal heaven, and we're not talking about those little felt animals the Waldorf preschoolers love so much. No, we're talking the 32nd Annual Black Sheep Gathering and The Alpaca Marketplace and Fleece Show. Black sheep, you probably already know from the piece on page 8. But do you grok alpacas? Check it out: They're good for the environment 'cause of how they eat and their soft little padded feet (not hooves); they have lovely fur which makes gorgeous yarn; and they're dang cute. And there's an alpaca agility course! The wobbly little newborns are so sweet that you might accidentally purchase a baby alpaca like the one pictured right and take it home for the kids. (Alpaca farmers need land and stables and stuff, so be prepared, or buy a nice alpaca wool vest instead.) See Calendar.

What says "the Pacific Northwest rocks" like a garden? Nuthin', that's what. Except maybe the 13th Annual KLCC Garden Tour, during which Eugenians who aren't toiling away in our own patches o' snail heaven can drop our jaws at the ingenuity and beauty of our neighbors' spaces. With music, free massages, and garden art in some locations and simply stunning fleurs, what more do you need? (Hint: Take that allergy pill!) Don't bring your pup; do snag walking shoes & rain gear. Not that it will rain, we're sure. Tix are available everywhere you might like to be — you know, like Euphoria Chocolate, Sundance, Gray's, Down to Earth and a ton of other places — so there's no excuse not to support the local station that so thoughtfully brings us hours of listening pleasure. See Sunday Calendar.

The Bachfest is starting about a week later than usual, so we're a bit hungry for classical music around here. Starved, we tell you, starved! We could eat our iPod for its Mozart quotient alone. But wait … versatile cellist, librarian, storyteller and all around good guy Jeff Defty has just dropped off a press release for Saturday's An Evening of Chamber Music. The iPod is safe because Defty & the other musicians you see in the pic to the left are gonna lay down some Mozart — plus Mendelssohn, Honegger and Shostakovich (see more details on p. 27) — for a good cause. Habitat for Humanity has built 33 homes in the Eugene-Springfield-Veneta area, and there's one more a-comin'. You can join in funding the house, partying with the musicians (notoriously wild — check out the book Mozart in the Jungle sometime if you don't believe us) and getting in a good pre-festie classical glow. We're also excited that the 5th Street Public Market's Bach Party, with musicians playing noon-4pm, starts on Monday! See Calendar.

DIVA's getting all super-cool on us this week. Do the words multimedia performance get you all hot and bothered? How about hyper-color flash or chalk board animations? Because they should push that excitement button. At least the good ones like Cartune Xprez, a collected of 16 animated videos along with live performances by Slow Dance Recyttal (pictured right) and Hooliganship. This stuff is so amazing, beyond our capabilities and well, surreal, that all we can say is whoa. (Brett Campbell's story on p. 27 has a more coherent description.) See Friday Calendar.