Best of Eugene 2021-2022

There’s a popular song about wanting to be the very best — and to catch them is the protagonist’s quest. OK, that’s the intro song from the Pokémon TV series. But the sentiment is similar to the spirit of the annual Eugene Weekly Best Of contest. We want to capture the very best of Eugene and Springfield, and we’re only able to do it because of you, the readers. 

For us at Eugene Weekly, the “best” part of Best Of is seeing what readers think about us — the best and the worst. As always, readers love that we’re still free and still local (and still offering the crossword, horoscopes and “Savage Love”). Readers also love how local and opinionated the letters to the editor are, as well as the hot takes in the Slant column.

And now for the worst part of EW, which is actually pretty polite this year. Some readers wish we could print more pages (we do, too), had more boxes (you’re reading our mind), had received a donation from a certain rich Oregon donor (come on, Phil, “Just Do It!”) and ran more than once a week (well, make sure you’ve signed up for our EW Extra Newsletter!). 

We did get some heat from our readers, though. We got the usual criticisms of being too liberal, yet some think we’re not liberal enough. But I’d like to tell the one reader who’s concerned about the very real existential problem that is poems as letters to the editor: You are not alone. 

Anyway, enough about us. Let’s get to the best. — Henry Houston