As October 21, 2015 approaches—the exact date Marty McFly programmed into Doc Brown’s time traveling DeLorean in Back To the Future II—there has been a certain buzz about what has and hasn’t come to fruition in the perceived future, and a certain amount of bellyaching that the hoverboard promised in that movie has yet to […]
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.
Posted inNews
Chance Meeting Builds a Bridge To Kenya
Local nonprofit adopts an orphanage
Arriving in Oregon from Kenya—his first time in America—just three days before our interview in early July, Jackson Mwanzia looks like any other tourist in Bend. He is sitting at Jackson’s Corner, drinking tea, wearing a light baseball hat; rectangular eyeglasses rest on his broad nose. “I am from Kenya,” he announces, standing up to […]
Posted inOutside
What’s Making the Bend Elks So Hot?
With the best record in the league, hometown team wraps up its regular season
As the season moves into its final stretch, with only two weeks remaining before the playoffs, the Bend Elks have already clinched the division title, with nine fewer losses than the second place team, division rivals Corvallis Knights. In fact, the team is so strong this year that they have nearly as many wins as […]
Posted inMusic
A Love Note to Thomas Lauderdale
Pink Martini’s bandleader is indefatigable
Thomas Lauderdale is busy. He texts me from the road. Then he texts from Columbus, Ohio. “Just finishing a month-long tour,” he lets me know. I call him back, but his voicemail is full. I text and let him know that I’ll call him the next day, just after lunch so that we can talk […]
Posted inNews
Are you our new editor?
When I graduated from college more than 20 years ago, I made a beeline from Vermont to San Francisco with a dream of becoming a writer. I was an English major, with a head full of Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare (chocolate milkshake, we called it), but very little sense about what working for a newspaper or […]
Posted inOutside
Tough and Beautiful
Cascade Cycling Classic is a summer tradition
Sponsorship is the backbone for professional cycling, and the annual Cascade Cycling Classic—the longest consecutively running stage race in the United States—is no exception. But it is a different type of sponsorship than, say, the U.S. Postal Service or Volkswagen ponying up cash; it is something much more grassroots. “The fact that we have local […]
Posted inCulture
Iran, and Then I Biked
Part travelogue, part diplomacy, biking documentary showcases mountain biking in Iran
Sports often are the best diplomacy, from ping pong in 1971 opening a long-closed door between the United States and China, to more recently, the invitation to North Korea to join the World Cup soccer games. Add to that list: mountain biking in Iran. Iran is one of the most isolated countries in the world. […]
Posted inCulture
Art Watch 7/15-7/22
Going By Bike
The bulk of the presentation for the jury-selected paintings in A6’s “Going By Bike” are three paintings hung in A6’s front corridor. The first is from Jane Quale; a calm and demurely beautiful painting, a tomato-red background with the black silhouette of the back half of a bike covering the painting’s lower quarter. Adjacent to […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Noodle Reboot
Popular Soba noodles returns to downtown
About two years ago, the popular downtown noodle shop Soba closed its doors. There were rumors that the place would reopen again, sometime. And then, with little fanfare, that “sometime” arrived earlier this summer as Soba re-opened in a downtown storefront a few doors down and across the street from its previous location, the space […]
Posted inOutside
Listening and Wondering
Sen. Ron Wyden hears concerns at Oregon’s seven wonders
Although the pounding forces of nature forged the Oregon Coast thousands of years ago and volcanic explosions—and implosions—left their distinct marks on the landscape with a series of mountain ranges (and craters and lava tubes) throughout the state, over the course of just one single year seven spots in Oregon have been singled out as […]
