Avatar photo

Phil Busse

Phil Busse has done his tour of duty with alt-weeklies, starting in 1992 right after graduation from Middlebury College as the first environmental beat reporter for San Francisco Weekly. After a brief detour through the University of Oregon School of Law, Phil returned to writing as the first Managing Editor for Portland Mercury. In 2006, he started the Media Institute for Social Change in Portland, through which he continues to host a summer program teaching college students to produce documentaries.

Until he was 25 or so, Phil thought that he would be a spy, and took scuba lessons to prepare, and learned to drive a motorcycle and an 18-wheeler. Perhaps, then, it is unsurprising that his favorite holiday is the Fourth of July (he loves blowing stuff up). He feels at home with Joseph Conrad's fictional characters.

pwbusse@yahoo.com
Posted inOutside

Need a Little Alone Time?

The “new” Oregon Desert Trail offers an 800-mile trek through solitude
Avatar photo Phil Busse

The difference between the Pacific Crest Trail and the Oregon Desert Trail, explains Shane Von Schlemp who has walked both, is a lot of “space-out time.” He goes on to explain that the famous PCT is well-marked—and increasingly well-trodden—while ODT is, at best, a faint trail that meanders through some of Oregon’s most hard-scrabbled and […]

Posted inNews

Film Event: Archaeology Channel Film Fest

Avatar photo Phil Busse

The best archaeology-related films in the world are coming to Bend! Come to see some outstanding films and help us support TAC Festival 2015 by enjoying our mini-festival for four evenings (a different 2-hour show each evening). These are the top films from The Archaeology Channel International Film Festival that took place last May. All […]

Posted inNews

This Week in The Source

Avatar photo Phil Busse

It has been a fun week at the Source, and it is a fun issue. Our Outdoor Advisor, Corbin Gentzler, points readers to a series of ghost towns sprinkled around Central Oregon, reminders about a past that has come and gone, mining towns that time left behind. But this issue is more about what from […]

Posted inCulture

Environmentalism on Film

Telluride Mountain Films captures the adventurer’s spirit
Avatar photo Phil Busse

Since the Telluride Mountain Film Festival launched in 1979, the definition of “environmentalist” has both broadened and become much more diverse. Likewise, the collection of films for this annual festival—and its subsequent tour of short films around the country—has become more complicated and more nuanced about the definition it provides for modern-day environmentalism. Duke & […]

Posted inSpecial Issues & Guides

The Hat Makes The Woman

Cate Havstad is refashioning the cowboy—er, girl—hat
Avatar photo Phil Busse

Cate Havstad believes in signs. While a student at University of California-Santa Cruz, she was struggling with whether formal education was the right path for her. A friend, musician Willy Tea Taylor, invited her to join on a road trip and film project—and to sweeten the deal, he offered her a vintage cowboy hat. “That […]

Posted inCulture

Sibling Hatred

2nd Street’s latest is intense, but lightly comical
Avatar photo Phil Busse

More than a frame to hold the actors and the storyline, the set—as well as the soundtrack—plays a central role in the charm of 2nd Street Theater’s current production of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Front-and-center is a stripped-down space that does triple-time as a 1910 cabaret, a 1935 movie set and a 1962 […]

Sign up for newsletters

Get the best of The Source - Bend, Oregon directly in your email inbox.

Sending to:

Gift this article