Top 10 Books it Seemed Everyone in Bend Was Reading in 2009
Due to restrictions in the recent Top Ten edition of The Source, we had to hold a two lists from the print edition. Here is the first of those, two which was penned by Hayley Wright of Between the Covers Books.
Au Revoir 2009: a look back at this past year
As 2009 comes to a close it’s time for a few personal observations about the year. First and foremost it was a remarkable year in that Bend seemed a much more livable place.
Have Yourself a Merry Angry Christmas
It's an ancient tradition among columnists (and their Internet Age descendants, the bloggers) to present joke “gifts” to public figures at Christmas. For instance, a heart for Dick Cheney, a brain for Sarah Palin and a pair of cojones for Barack Obama.
Sing it Yourself: With a recent comeback, Karaoke is thriving like it's 1995
Four women huddle around a small flat-screen monitor, sharing two microphones as they gleefully fumble their way through a Britney Spears song. One of these women has just been crowned Miss Oregon USA a few weeks earlier but that doesn't stop her from smilingly belting out the pop tune. Every seat in the already cramped…
Adventures of a Backcountry Babe: Checking out the new 3SBC Yurts
I'm a backcountry babe. Not in the huck-it-off-the-cliff-poster-shot kind of way, though I do have a highly photogenic snowplow tuck perfected. I mean babe, as in newborn. This past weekend, I not only survived my very first backcountry skiing experience, but totally loved it, thanks especially to some awesome ski partners and the guys at…
Return Of The King Of The World: The wait is over for James Cameron's Avatar
Not often these days do we get a real “event” movie, as they are known in the business. Event movies are those that fill the theaters, provoke months of build up, endless post-viewing debate and are remembered years later. Titanic was an event movie. Most of us, even those only passively plugged into mainstream culture,…
The Road Less Travelled: Apocalyptic vision takes you on an artistic yet painful journey with The Road
Director John Hillcoat likes dirt. His gritty western The Proposition and The Ghost of the Civil Dead, a dark and macabre look at brutal violence in Australian prisons, both feature flies buzzing around people's heads. Hillcoat has tackled all of his movies with collaborator Nick Cave either writing the script and/or scoring the film's music…
A Clanky Kind of Claustrophobia: Crack in Time gets lost in the video vortex
Having already exploited most of the good jokes inherent in a robotic space universe, the Ratchet & Clank franchise was forced to exploit all the bad jokes for A Crack in Time. That's a shame. I wanted to laugh more. But A Crack in Time seems much more concerned with dramatizing the series' storyline and…
Pronghorn Plant Plunderers Pay Up
If you wonder why some Central Oregonians think the word “developer” is a synonym for “parasite,” check out the news stories about Pronghorn that appeared Monday. Seems the developers of the ritzy “resort” (I’m putting the word in quotation marks because it’s not really a resort but an ultra-high-end housing tract with a couple of…
A Little of This, A Little of That: Fusion food with the distinct flavor of Bend at 5 Spice
When Lilian Chu of Hong Kong Restaurant fame and Soba founder Di Long got together to discuss the concept for their joint venture in Deep's former Wall Street location, I can't imagine there was much argument about the cuisine. Bend's new Asian fusion supergroup went straight for what they do best. Though named for the…
A Little of This, A Little of That: Fusion food with the distinct flavor of Bend at 5 Spice
When Lilian Chu of Hong Kong Restaurant fame and Soba founder Di Long got together to discuss the concept for their joint venture in Deep's former Wall Street location, I can't imagine there was much argument about the cuisine. Bend's new Asian fusion supergroup went straight for what they do best. Though named for the…
One Last Night: Our recommendations for a New Year's Eve to remember
Blue Moon Bash Some may find it odd that our very own Silver Moon Brewing Co would host a New Year's Eve party with the name “Blue Moon Bash,” but it's with good reason. Going with the moon theme, this will be the first New Year's Eve in 20 years that there will be a…
CD Review – Sufjan Stevens: The BQE
Sufjan Stevens The BQE Asthmatic Kitty Records
Editor's Note: This review was scheduled to run in October, but never made it into the paper. But since it's one of the cooler albums of the year, we're running it anyway! The BQE is cinematic suite inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Hula-Hoop. It was commissioned…
Our Picks for 12/23 – 12/31: Adam Schell Reading, Holiday String Band, New Year’s Eve Music and more
Adam Schell Author Reading wednesday 23 We got a book called Tomato Rhapsody: A Fable of Love, Lust, and Forbidden Fruit in the mail a few months ago and that wasn't unique in and of itself because we get a lot of books in the mail. But what did catch our often-wandering attention was the…
Good Cop, Bad Cop: OLCC gets a slap from DOJ
After years of mounting complaints into the practices of its local office and regional manager in Bend, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) released last week the findings of a Department of Justice investigation in the Bend OLCC office. The 39-page report, which was accompanied by a three-page letter from OLCC Director Stephen Pharo stopped…
Top 10 Local Stories: Looking back at the year we went for broke
Bank Bust The fallout from the national housing market implosion was the financial story of the year. Billions of dollars in bailout money for big banks and foreclosure notes for families with leaking adjustable rate mortgages. And the story dominated headlines, certainly for the first half of the year. Closer to home, local banks, many…
Wyden Achieves a Timber War Truce
It really must be the season of peace and goodwill if timber company executives like John Shelk are posing for photo ops with environmentalists like Andy Kerr, the longtime nemesis of Oregon loggers. That's what happened last week when Kerr and other environmentalists joined with representatives of the timber industry to announce agreement on a…
Smoke, Mirrors and Obama Care: Horsetrading on health, Cuban cigars, the other Brittany and more
The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from your doorstep, caroling and reeking of eggnog, still dazed after finishing Season 2 of Or Bust, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
Tummy Tucks for Everyone! Happy holidays to the health care…
Letter of the Week: Bible Clear On Gay Marriage
This week's letter comes from Rev J.A. Matteson in Redmond who takes this opportunity to go “All Old Testament” on the gay marriage debate while simultaneously defending President Obama. Now that's something that you don't see everyday. Thanks for the letter, Rev. You can pick up your earthly reward, a bag of Strictly Organic Coffee,…
Redmond Has Let Students Down
Can someone in Redmond please explain in detail as to why the city has approved grants and any other funds to make downtown Redmond pretty with new renovations, new sidewalks, new signage, newly paved streets, and much more to draw more shoppers to downtown Redmond, all the while the Redmond school board decided to turn…
Family Ties Riff Rankled
The “In Their Own Words” quips about the personal lives of the actors in the show Family Ties failed in its attempts at humor. It crossed the lines into the insipid and insulting. Meredith Baxter – Birney: “prefers girls. What an episode that could have been.” Perhaps some humor could have been found in this…
