Thanks to the efforts of Kevin and Molly Grove, Brian Barry and Lee Stevenson, among others, last night skiers intent on maintaining the right to climb/skin Mount Bachelor had the opportunity to meet face-to-face with Mt. Bachelor, Inc president Dave Rathbun and representatives of the U.
Skin Game: trying to ascend Mt. Bachelor the old fashioned way
Posted inCulture
Book Review: Nightlight by The Harvard Lampoon
Nightlight
By The Harvard Lampoon Vintage Books
Nightlight, The Harvard Lampoon's parody of the Twilight series, opens when Belle Goose first meets her dad at the airport when arriving in Switchblade, Oregon. She trips over a toddler, runs into a keychain rack, falls down the escalator and somersaults over her rolling luggage. “I get my lack of coordination from my dad, who always used to push me down when I was learning how to walk,” explains Belle.
This is just a sample of the ridiculousness the writers of one of the country's oldest humor magazines employ as they mock both the writing style and the plot twists of Stephanie Meyer's best-selling four-part saga.
Posted inCulture
A Neon Sign of the Times: Slopeside fashion and function collide at The Bend Ski Club
One of the reasons I started snowboarding was that the clothes were way cooler. Growing up skiing with my dad in the early '90s, I witnessed an embarrassing number of ski-related fashion mishaps. My father would routinely rock the acid-washed jeans/suspenders/neon jacket/cowboy hat combo. Since most of the other skiers on the slopes seemed to follow in his fashion footsteps, I came to terms with the fact that there was no hope for me. Especially when I was forced to wear one of those fleece hats with streaming tassels on top, which served no purpose other than to whip me in the face when I turned.
Skiers seem to embrace bad fashion. It's like there's some kind of magic in the neon and mirror sunglasses. While snowboarding clothes have evolved with the times, going from baggy hip-hop wear to more hipster-inspired duds, ski fashion has lagged behind. Skiers singlehandedly introduced the world to neon and they've been having a tough time letting it die.
Posted inOutside
The Adverse Weather Conditions Bowl
It's pre-bowl season now in the college sports world, the period when your Saturdays are spent clicking aimlessly between non-conference college basketball matchups and TNT's weekly screening of Independence Day. The only other thing of note occupying your time is the ongoing assail of the BCS system. But the truth is you're wasting your time. There will never be a playoff system, let's accept that and instead use the other list of bowls strictly for comedic value.
Here are some bowls I propose the NCAA or whatever group of pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions and tortilla chip makers implement next season:
Posted inOutside
Freewheelin' In the Old Mill: A pictorial retrospective of last week's Cyclocross Nationals
We're abandoning our usual format this week for a visual recap of the massively successful Cyclocross National finals. The event was held over four days in Bend and reportedly drew around 6,000 people and set new attendance records for the event, which will return again next year to Central Oregon. Thanks to Outdoors correspondent Pam Stevenson for toughing it out and providing these pics. Good on ya, Pam.
Posted inOutside
Porcupines on a pedestal: They don't throw their quills, so settle down, people
In our part of the country, where trees are thought of as a cash crop, porcupines are not thought of as heroes, or worthy of being placed on a pedestal. I can recall back in the '50s when there were signs nailed to trees and poles all over the forest around Bend stating: “PLEASE KILL PORCUPINES” and porcupine poison stations were common in the forest. Government agencies and private timber companies still pay people to trap, shoot and otherwise make life miserable for Poor Old Porcy (I've replaced the usual “k” with the “c” so we don't start blaming the porcupine for the swine flu, and besides pigs don't have quills.)
In spite of the way most humans look at and treat porcupines, a baby porcy born at the High Desert Museum last summer made her first public appearance last week at an elementary school in Virginia, and was even featured in The Washington Post.
Posted inCulture
Pucker Up: Disney's The Princess and The Frog brings hand-drawn animation back to life
There is a void in the world of children's film, a land cluttered with CGI squirrels, superheroes and flyaway houses that leaves today's kids missing something. That void comes from a lack of hand-drawn animated Disney musicals. Sure, most kids have seen The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast on DVD, if their parents were lucky enough to buy copies before they went back into the fabled Disney Vault, but it's not the same on the small screen. Now, a decade since their last dance with a princess comes the story of The Princess and the Frog.
Taking place in New Orleans, The Princess and the Frog features Disney's first African-American princess, Tiana, who has worked around the clock her whole life to open her own restaurant. After a small disaster at a masquerade ball, she dons a princess gown (tiara included) and while wishing on a star meets Prince Naveen in his mucus-y reptile form.
Posted inFood & Drink
Come for the Food, Stay for the Atmosphere: Round Up a Good Time at El Rodeo
The first time I visited El Rodeo it was on a whim. Running errands on Business 97 and completely dejected having failed to accomplish anything on my list, I was tired, hungry and desperate for shelter from strip mall world. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted El Rodeo. Though a pretty standard-looking Mexican restaurant from the outside, I sensed a certain cheerfulness about it that drew me in. My instincts couldn't have been better. Immediately upon entering the sunny terra cotta tiled foyer and walking up to the host station, I was greeted by the friendliest smile I had seen all day, and it was a genuine one at that. In fact, every staff member I came in contact with from the hostess to the bartenders and servers in their tan satin guayabera shirts replicated that smile, and my day of frustrations quickly melted away.
Posted inFood & Drink
Come for the Food, Stay for the Atmosphere: Round Up a Good Time at El Rodeo
The first time I visited El Rodeo it was on a whim. Running errands on Business 97 and completely dejected having failed to accomplish anything on my list, I was tired, hungry and desperate for shelter from strip mall world. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted El Rodeo. Though a pretty standard-looking Mexican restaurant from the outside, I sensed a certain cheerfulness about it that drew me in. My instincts couldn't have been better. Immediately upon entering the sunny terra cotta tiled foyer and walking up to the host station, I was greeted by the friendliest smile I had seen all day, and it was a genuine one at that. In fact, every staff member I came in contact with from the hostess to the bartenders and servers in their tan satin guayabera shirts replicated that smile, and my day of frustrations quickly melted away.
Posted inFood & Drink
Little Bites: What's Brewing In Downtown Bend
It's been what seems like a couple of years since Santiago Casanueva first started pushing yerba maté brews to Bendites and he's won a fair number of converts to his leafy coffee alternative that has long been popular in places like Brazil. Now Casanueva is back in downtown Bend just a few paces from his former digs at St. Clair Place. The Top Leaf Maté bar is now serving at the increasingly hip Tin Pan alley, between Lone Pine Coffee and Thump. It's going to take some sales pitch to get Bendites off coffee as good as Lone Pine and Thump, but if anybody can wean you off the bean, it's Casanueava. Bonus web points to anyone who logs online and checks out Casanueava's DIY “webformercial” that ran under the provocative headline, Bend Oregon What Is Yerba Maté. Extra bonus points and a bag of good old fashioned coffee to anyone who can spot and identify the Source staffer featured in the video. E-mail your best guess to editor@tsweekly.com and put off maté for another week.