Articles

An epidemic of violence against women is happening globally and in the U.S. that rarely gets acknowledged because violence is embedded in our patriarchal concepts of masculinity. Globally one in three women will be raped or beaten in their lifetime, or over one billion.

April 21 may as well be the new 4/20, as far as Eugene and comedian Doug Benson are concerned. The seminal stoner and star of Super High Me returns to WOW Hall for his 3rd annual celebration of giggling and giggle weed, hot off releasing his on-the-road documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Rolled — to continue in the vein of pot variations on a Morgan Spurlock theme — on Chill.com.

If you’ve never heard Built to Spill, let me first ask you this: Have you been living on the moon for the past 20 years, or in a subterranean cave with no light or sound? ’Cause if you haven’t, then there’s really no other excuse to have missed out on some of the most vital and interesting guitar rock produced in the Northwest since Nirvana. 

I noticed a Kickstarter campaign the other day; someone is transcribing the flow of popular rappers into traditional music notation and wants help funding a book about it. I hear you can study “turntablism” at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Does this mean rap is dead — or that it’s finally part of the establishment?

There is this sublime passage near the end of Cottage Theatre’s current production of The Secret Garden when Kyra Siegel, in the lead role of Mary Lennox, bows low to the stage and then rises in hypnotic fits and starts, as her character commences a healing dance for her invalid cousin Colin (George Schroeder); seeming possessed, Siegel’s lanky body jumps and arcs and shivers through space, and the complicated grace of her movements defy the mundane laws of gravity. It’s beautiful to behold.

The Place Beyond the Pines is an ambitious, beautifully filmed follow-up to director/co-writer Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine (2010). That bleak bruise of an indie darling gave a stamp of greatness to the careers of Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, and it divided viewers, who thought it was a searing portrait of a dissolving marriage — or thought it had little to say. 

It’s a chilly April day with bursts of sunshine interspersed with blustery wind and rain. It’s not the worst day to be on the streets of Eugene, but it’s not the best day either, especially if you’re ill. The cold wind cuts through you and the rain soaks you, making the shaking and chills of fever feel that much worse; the moments of sun remind you that you have nowhere warm and dry to be, and no one to take care of you.

What do you do if you are homeless, uninsured or just plain broke and you’re sick? Where do you go if you do have a home but the waiting list is too long at the clinic or your insurance isn’t good enough to get you the care you need?