Wake up seven days a week with the Cascades Reader. Get local news, event information, podcasts, discounts and more. Sign up now!
The happy hour that’s downright joyful.
Although still sometimes referred to as a "new bar" in town, the Summit Saloon and Stage has actually now been open for an entire year.
The happy hour that’s downright joyful.
Although still sometimes referred to as a “new bar” in town, the Summit Saloon and Stage has actually now been open for an entire year.
Oh so tacky.Great aunts, grandmothers and the overzealous knitters in your family
sometimes have the misguided idea that everyone should own a holiday
sweater. While some are more "tasteful" in their selection process,
others feel that nothing says "Happy Holidays" better than a blazing
red knit creation complete with three dimensional snowmen, glitter,
sewn-on ribbons and bells and, if you're lucky, some battery-operated
lights. While this attempt to spread holiday cheer is typically
well-meant, this nightmare apparel is about as subtle as Santa Claus
beating you over the head with a sack of broken Christmas lights
screaming "Merry Christmas" and about as desirable as an STD - until
now that is. Holiday sweaters have a new purpose in life and are a
reason for celebration with the increased popularity of ugly Christmas
sweater parties. So get excited when you unwrap the latest holiday
sweater from Aunt Gertie - you no longer have to fake acting thankful
and now have a perfectly acceptable way to show it off and even win
prizes.
Oh, the sad plight of the young vampire.While it stands on its own as an atmospheric art movie, Let the Right
One In could be interpreted as the ragingly popular Twilight's polar
opposite - human boy meets vamp girl instead of the reverse. Adolescent
love grows between pre-pubescent 12 year olds instead of
hormone-frenzied 17 year olds, the plot and direction being realistic
and bleak, rather than fantastical and uplifting.
This movie sucks
you in from the eerie opening scene: through a window an anemic-looking
blonde boy Oskar (Kare Hederbrant) brandishes a knife in front of a
mirror, pretending he is telling someone to "squeal like a pig."
Oskar's morbid side stems from the bullying he confronts in school on a
daily basis. He's a weird kid for sure, but not as weird as his
neighbors. Eli (Lina Leandersson) and her "dad" (Per Ragnar), move in
next door, revealing a relationship that is bizarre beyond belief. Set
in a remote Swedish town, most of the action takes place in a park
between an apartment complex and an elementary school.
Dude, I don’t need this. I was in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.If you're like me, you may have serious concerns about the Keanu
Reeves/apocalyptic-star-vehicle industry. Is the stock spiking?
Plunging? Should we ask Congress for a bailout?
Well, with The Day
the Earth Stood Still, an impossibly boring, humorless, pedestrian
remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic, I am proud to inform you that
industry is receiving a stimulus of sorts. Turns out crappy Keanu
movies are like Detroit sedans: quality doesn't matter, as long as they
sell.
Reeves is back in Neo/Messiah mode, as Klaatu, an alien
diplomat who travels across the cosmos with his robot, nicknamed
"GORT." Klaatu takes human form in an effort to observe people, and
ready Earth for his plans.
We spend a lot of ink on the up-and-coming local musicians, sometimes
forgetting about the legions of older, more experienced musicians. Bo
Reynolds and Carl Ventis are two older and wiser artists that have just
released new albums. Both have been on the scene for a while. Both have
released albums for one simple reason: the love of music. So while they
may not be contenders for Teen Choice Awards anytime soon, they have
managed to produce albums that showcase their musical knowledge and
dedication.
This week's Letter of the Week comes in from a man we know only as "Hob." We can't think of a more pressing issue for our city than the injustices heaped upon the legion's of revelers who, too drunk to make it back downtown to pick up their cars before the stroke of noon, find themselves saddled with double digit parking tickets.
Where the magic happens.You may be surprised when you walk into Hot Box Betty expecting pretty
things and are confronted by Jaws and Dead Birds. Not that the
paintings by Alex Reisfar aren't beautiful - they are.
Reisfar's work has a Latin American influence; the figures are rendered
like those of Diego Rivera or Antonio Ruiz. In Maria and Child, the
breastfeeding mother's hair transforms into artery and umbilical cord
ala Frida Kahlo, while her masked face draws from the indigenous
revolution. "In parts of the Zapatista movement, they have these
pamphlets, and the imagery in them, especially the female Zapatistas,
is very powerful," Reisfar says. While initially surrealist, Reisfar's
paintings are not about dream worlds, but full of intentionally applied
symbols. The drama in the work is not happenstance from the
subconscious, but grounded, as he says, in "anarchist history and
theory." One piece is blatantly anti-war; a soldier with a leering
skull greets a smiling baby and a female figure that cannot face him or
the viewer. In El Cazadore, a great white shark signifies a menacing
force ("great white: GW," Reisfar points out) while a Zapatista child
stands in defiance. In Gaurdian, a Native American child begins to
unravel. Reisfar is confronting big subject matter: death, organized
religion, war, propaganda and white guilt.
There's something for nearly every Oregonian to not like about Gov. Ted
Kulongoski's proposed budget for the next biennium. Faced with sagging
tax revenues, Kulongoski wants to raise state fees on a whole passel of
people and activities.
Hunting licenses and fishing licenses will
cost a lot more. Nurses and psychologists will pay more for their
professional registration. Campers who stay in state parks will see
their nightly fees nearly double. The cost of a death certificate will
almost triple.
Even falconers will see the cost of their licenses (yes, you need a license to hunt with a bird in Oregon) jump by 125%.
The
most onerous and odious of the increases Kulongoski is proposing,
though, is raising the fee to register a motor vehicle. It's now $54
for two years; Kulongoski wants to triple it to $162.
My children recently enjoyed an unseasonably warm December afternoon by
running and playing games in the backyard of our northwest Redmond
home.
As their screams and laughter grew louder, I stuck my head
out the sliding glass door to say, "Quiet down. You'll bother the
neighbors."
But then I remembered. The two houses that border
our backyard now stand empty. There is no one to ask to throw a stray
ball back over the fence. No sounds of yard work or family life to
break up the afternoon monotony.
As much as I enjoy tranquility,
this silence around us is both strange and sad. Once noisy and alive
with the sounds of kids at play and lawn mowers at work, my
neighborhood is starting to feel more like a ghost town. There's
something a little haunting about being surrounded by vacant
2,300-square foot homes. You look up at the windows and almost expect
to see shadows. Each empty house serves as a reminder of a battle lost
or a dream shattered.
Get the best of The Source - Bend, Oregon directly in your email inbox.
Sending to:
