BendFilm Goes Furthur! A note from BendFilm Executive Director
By Todd Looby, BendFilm Executive Director I can’t think of a better event to kickoff BendFilm’s 11 years celebrating Independent Film than to host a special screening of Alex Gibney’s “Magic Trip” at McMennamin’s on June 17, 2014. The date marks the 50th anniversary of when Ken Kesey, Neal Cassidy and the Merry Pranksters took…
Guest Post: Preventing Mass Killings with Kindness
.sarahwynne. By Molly Boyle, Sisters High School Student Our country was devastated by the 2012 Sandy Hook Shooting in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were killed in a shooting spree. Schools all around the United States tightened security by installing metal detectors and bulletproof glass, and performing routine lockdown drills. However, regardless…
Update: Two Bulls Fire Now 5 Percent Contained
Matt Fox The Two Bulls Fire is now at a 5 percent containment, according to an update from the Central Oregon Joint Information Center. At the moment, the fire is not in the Bridge Creek Watershed and officials say the Outback facilities are not in the path of the fire. About 50 residents are still…
Arts, Beautification and Culture Awards Announced
PRESS RELEASE INFO: The City of Bend Arts, Beautification & Culture (ABC) Commission and Bend City Council honored four individuals this week with the annual ABC Award. The awards recognize individuals, organizations and businesses that made significant contributions to the promotion, beautification or preservation of the City’s arts, culture, natural environment or public spaces in…
Two Bulls Fire
The Two Bulls Fire erupted Saturday afternoon in the vicinity of Tumalo Reservoir. The cause of the fire is still under investigation as residents of Bend are waking to a smokey Sun Morning. By Saturday evening residents in the area of upper Skyliner Rd and the Saddleback subdivision had been asked to evacuate and level…
Fires Reported Near Tumalo Reservoir
Corbin Gentzler Smoke from the fires can be seen from Bend. KTVZ is reporting that wildfires have broken out near Tumalor Reservoir. According to the station: One fire was said to be due west of the end of Tumalo Reservoir Road, which turns into Bull Flat Road and dead-ends at the north-south Brooks-Scanlon Logging Road…
What in the World
shooting, Seattle Pacific University, Orange is the New Black, CIA, Twitter, Maury, Today Show
Wolf OR7 is a Proud Poppa
Oregon Fish and Wildlife Office OR7’s adorable offspring. This just in via Natural World columnist Jim Anderson: According to word from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wolf OR7 not only has a girlfriend, but that term is past tense. He now has a “mate,” and between them…
Council Proposes Water and Sewer Rate Increases
Long showers, green lawns, freshly laundered clothes—these are the luxuries that come with affordable water and sewer rates. But what if those rates weren’t so affordable, or if you could save money by using less? In a work session tonight, members of the Budget Committee and City Council discussed possible water and sewer rate increases…
A Bonta gelato confession!
With no prompting whatsoever, Jeff Labhart from Bonta Gelato dropped by our offices yesterday to drop off four pints of gelato. Yes, we feel as if we must have done something right! I am writing this as a confession that I squirreled away the Dulce de Leche with Sea Salt for myself – and have…
The Old Timers Issue
Face it, if you moved to Bend after 1990, you are a newcomer. There is a distinct before and after for Central Oregon’s hub, a time before one out of five jobs were supporting the housing boom here, as realtors or construction workers, and a time before you needed all your fingers and toes to…
Letters 5/29-6/5
IN REPLY TO A LETTER FROM “THAT JACK ELLIOT” RE: “SPORTS ARE SO GAY 5/8” The flawed notion of “born this way” does not become fact simply because of some questionable science from a quarter century ago, pop culture bombardment, and media complicity. So Elliot, if being gay is actually nature over nurture, please educate…
OLD TIMERS: The 1930s
Bend remained festive throughout the era of the Great Depression, seeing its first Pet Parade and Bend Water Pageant. It also saw the opening of Erickson’s grocery and the Pine Tavern during the 1930s. Carmen Capell is a second-generation Bendite; her father moved here in 1915, and she is mom to city councilor Mark Capell.…
Film Events 6/5-6/12
Dam removal is one of those topics, like gun control, where a middle ground doesn’t seem to thrive. The new documentary DamNation definitely falls in on the dam removal side, but the film mostly seems aimed at people like me: the laymen who see pros and cons on both sides, but are too wishy-washy to…
OLD TIMERS: The 1940s
In the 1940s, Bend was abuzz with military activity thanks to nearby Fort Abbot (now Sunriver), the Redmond airbase, and military maneuvers staged on the high desert. Despite all the commotion, it was still a small town, with few paved roads and no traffic lights. Shirley Ray, 87, recalls a time when every face was…
Sustained Heat
Warm Gadget has been producing some of the most interesting, nightmarish and industrial electro-metal in the area for nearly five years. Correction: the only nightmarish industrial electro-metal in the area. Warm Gadget is made up of a backbone of heavy discordant guitar and mechanized programed drum beats by Colton Williams, throat-rattling vocals by Tim Vester,…
OLD TIMERS: Bend Historical Timeline
Bend Historical Timeline 1920s- Population: 5,415 June 1920- First airplane crosses Cascades March 1922- St. Charles opens on “water tank hill” July 1922- First car drives up Pilot Butte May 1928- Frank T. Johns, national leader of the Socialist Party and candidate for president, drowns in Mirror Pond in attempt to save drowning boy April…
Out of Town 6/5-6/12
eugene saturday 7 Sasquatch Brew Fest Ninkasi Brewery hosts the 12th annual Sasquatch Brewfest in Eugene’s “Fermentation District.” The craft beer festival features batches brewed just for the event, as well as food, raffles, a silent auction, and a home brew competition against the backdrop of music from the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Tatiamo, the Hank…
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
I want those pants. I want the pair of paisley-splattered blue bellbottoms that Trevor Martell—the singer and lead guitarist for local throwback rock collective Patrimony—wore as he sauntered onto stage at Volcanic Theatre Pub. The three-piece, young in years but not experience, played opening fiddle to one of the its many role model groups, Hopeless…
South-by-South Sex
Admit it. We all watch porn. But more likely than not, it’s alone, and in the privacy of our own homes in front of a sticky laptop and within the limited scope of what we already knows gets us off. Everyone has their own definition of sexy, sexuality, gender and kink porn itself, but prepare…
Batter, batter, swing . . .
Not an official Major League Baseball Minor League Team, the Bend Elks are what is known as a “collegiate wood bat team,” a league comprised of college prospects looking for an extra opportunity to get noticed, and ultimately drafted, by major league teams. Leagues like the West Coast League are filled with a dozen teams…
OLD TIMERS: The 1950s
In the 1950s, Bend, like so many American towns, was enjoying a lull between the upheaval of World War II and the radical social changes of the 1960s. Polly Gervais Jacobson, 79, reflects on the changes she’s witnessed since those “mellow” times. Source Weekly: When did you move to Bend? Polly Gervais Jacobson: We moved to…
OLD TIMERS: The 1960s
The 1960s were a thriving time for small-town Bend. Lumber production was on the rise, the population remained steady and downtown was bustling. Although the once booming Pilot Butte Inn fell into disrepair and was demolished just months after being added to the historic registry of buildings in 1973, the 1960s marked the addition of…
Shhhhhh! A Tasty Bit of History
It is understood that all opinions are basically relative. I mean, for example, I am not a huge fan of eggplant, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a dish with eggplant in it is atrocious. (But, let’s say it together: Yuck!) That said, all opinions aside, there are two absolutes when it comes to the…
OLD TIMERS: The 1970s
As Bend edged toward 80 years old, the town was facing a drastic shift from an industrial town to a recreational one after the shutdown of Brooks-Scanlon Mill in 1983 because of dwindling lumber sources. In the subsequent decade, Bend’s population didn’t change much, growing slightly over the decade, 17,000 to 20,000 from 1980 to…
Bend’s most refreshing beer…
It’s time once again for 10 Barrel’s most polarizing, seasonal beer: Swill. To its fans, the name is clever and ironic; to its haters, the name couldn’t be more accurate. This year they’ve coined it American Radler. But what is that and will it bite? Radlers are traditional German shandies—aka, beer mixed with soda or…
OLD TIMERS: The 1980s
Jim Fields, owner of Fields Farm, located on the east side of Bend, has seen the neighborhood surrounding his approximate 10 acres transform from a rural landscape into urban living space. The earthy island of greenery and compost piles is now bordered by houses that have overtaken what were once fields and orchards. Just across…
Meet the Artist
Tripper Dungan is working on a new piece. He explains it as a guy with a cuckoo clock for a head carrying a staff, walking around with a goat. “It sounds funny,” said Dungan. “But it’s turning out pretty well.” That description isn’t out of Dungan’s wheelhouse…just look at the cover of this week’s Source;…
Bikes, Beer and Big Bucks
With the largest pro invitational award in the country—$20,000, enough for a down payment on a modest house—the annual (five years and counting) Blitz to the Barrel is becoming, if not one of the most important mountain bike races in the North America, then certainly the most eclectic and fun. The “barrel” in question is…
The Other 17 Percent
Nathan Brown attacks words like a man fresh from the desert stumbling into a buffet. That’s not to say he doesn’t choose his words carefully because the current Poet Laureate of the State of Oklahoma doesn’t waste a syllable either in his poetry or in conversation. His writing ranges from unpretentious intellectualism to matters of…
Source Suggests 6/5-6/12
Kathryn Claire Portlander Kathryn Claire’s music sounds almost as Celtic as her name. Playing fiddle and guitar, and singing in a sultry and rounded alto, she mixes classical training with modern singer-songwriter storytelling for an intriguing and mellow blend. The show also happens to be on Claire’s birthday, so expect an especially jig-worthy gig. Thu.,…
Our Picks 6/5-6/12
thursday 5 Beer Pong BEER PONG—It is such a relatively simple game (toss a small white ball into a beer cup), but somehow so, so, so entrancing. A 2007 Gallup Poll discovered that beer pong actually contributes to a 27 percent reduction in annual productivity at American colleges! And now it is here to drain…
Wandering Wolves
No one would have the slightest idea of the wanderings of “Journey,” AKA, OR-7, without the Federal Endangered Species ruling on the releases of wolves in Wyoming in 1995. To accomplish that, a lot of changes in attitude took place in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and…
Safety in their Sights
In the wake of the most recent mass shooting—this time in Isla Vista, Calif., near the University of California at Santa Barbara, where Elliot Rodger allegedly killed six people including himself—the ripple effects are coursing through the nation’s consciousness. While “active shooter events,” as the FBI calls them, have been a part of our social…
A Dead Horse
Maybe it’s best to think of Seth MacFarlane as the guy in class who copies your homework. He’s shrewd enough to find a way to pass the class, but he hasn’t done any original work all semester. Let’s look at MacFarlane’s career: His weirdly ripe singing voice is cribbed from Sinatra. His interminably enduring “Family…
OLD TIMERS: The Changing Face of Bend
As the largest city in the state’s fastest growing county—Deschutes County’s population jumped more than 36 percent between 2000 and 2010—Bend and its demographics are also changing at a rapid pace. Today’s Bendite is increasingly likely to be young, female, multi-racial, politically independent and employed in the service industry. For our Old Timers Issue, meet…
The State Legislature: Our Absentee Parent
For decades, Oregon resisted hosting an annual legislative session. It was one of the final states to finally concede that leadership requires at least a meeting of its lawmakers every year, and in 2012, installed an annual session. But even now, its new concession barely seems to qualify as an annual legislature; during even-numbered years,…
