Hip-Hop Do Gooder: Portland rapper Braille on faith, violence, and James Brown

Posted inMusic

Hip-Hop Do Gooder: Portland rapper Braille on faith, violence, and James Brown

The Source Staff

Braille: read him with your ears.Braille, the Portland-based rapper, is playing in Bend on Saturday night and the show is only his third appearance in town. One of the two other times was when he opened for James Brown at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. That's right…that James Brown, as in The Godfather or Soul, "Sex Machine", sequined cape James Brown.

The clean-mouthed hip-hop artist was picked by Brown's management to open shows for the Godfather between 2005 and 2006 in equal part for his positive (and f-bomb lacking) tunes and also his high-grade musical talent, both of which were thought to bode well with Brown's diverse and generation-spanning crowd. As Braille (real name Bryan Winchester) says, "You know, you don't want to be saying, 'Get your f'in hands in the air' when you've got somebody's grandma out in the crowd."

Posted inCulture

Theater-apalooza – Holiday Edition: Bend community theater, from Dickens to “Gunsmoke”

Mike Bookey

The Around the Bend players bring you some old timey Christmas shows.While the weather outside has yet to be frightful (although 62 degrees
in December is kind of scary), inside Bend's local theaters the holiday
season is underway and definitely delightful. Area theaters and
production companies have pulled out all the stops to ensure that
Bendites have the most Holly Jolly Christmas play lineup yet. While
Bend Theatre for Young People, Innovations Theater Works and one of the
Tower Theatre productions have already wrapped (see sidebar), there's
still plenty more to see. So even if it's 75 degrees outside next week
and Bachelor reopens its Frisbee golf course, you can still get into
the festive seasonal spirit thanks to Bend's diligent theater stewards. 

Posted inNews

WEEKEND WARRIOR 12/5-12/6

The Source Staff

Friday Night 12/5
Marv Ellis, Acoustic Minds at the Downtown Bendistillery Martini Bar

Ellis dishes out super jazzy and world-inspired hip-hop numbers accompanied by his innovative lyrical style. The Portland MC has played shows across the country, as well as in Europe, and this experience is evidenced in his live show, which tonight features Brooks B.

Posted inOutside

Thanks (for nothing) giving

The Source Staff

Left Field had just stepped out of the shower and was in the middle
of stirring up a Pepto-Bismol and 7-Up cocktail (we like to call it a
"Kansas City Mimosa") to both shake off a Thanksgiving Eve hangover as
well as prep the stomach for the near-fatal amount of holiday foods it
would be encountering later in the afternoon when we sat down for some
Thanksgiving day football. But when we turned on the tube, only about
half an hour after the posted kickoff of the Lions/Titans game in
Detroit, the game was pretty much over.
The Titans jumped out to
a 28-0 lead in the first quarter and it was clear that the miraculously
inept Lions would have no chance of tightening the game. As thus we
flip channels through parades, feel-good Lifetime channel movies and
the Weather Channel, all of which were more entertaining than the game
happening in Detroit.

Posted inCulture

In Defense of the Poetry Slam: Understanding Bend’s fascination with iambic pentameter

Suzanne Burns

Noted literary critic Harold Bloom calls spoken word poetry, "the death
of art" but I prefer comparing the monthly Bend Poetry Slam with an
Andy Warhol quote: "Art is what you can get away with."

The academic
community has criticized poetry slams since their inception in the
mid-80s because they challenge what is literary merit, though the same
devices of repetition, alliteration and rhyme, beloved by classic
poets, are shunned by critics when used in a slam setting.
Poetry
began as a way for ancient societies to record history. Over time,
iambic pentameter became the most common meter in the English language.
Think Shakespeare's sonnets. Think of this line, "to swell the ground
and plump the hazel shells" by Keats. Then how about, "complacency is
not the common place to cultivate the seeds of resurrection" mirroring
this poetic construction, from a poem by Jason Graham, who performs and
regularly places in the top three at the slam as Mosley Wotta?

Posted inOutside

The Late, Great Ed Park: Owl pranks with an old friend

Jim Anderson

Ed Park doing what he liked best in the "Good Old Days." Photo by Jim AndersonEd Park, Central Oregon's best outdoor writer, cross-country skier,
runner, and wildlife photographer has gone out among the stars.

Ed
was a gem and an Oregonian through-and-through. He was a graduate of
the grand old "Cow College" (OSU) over in Corvallis, and a student of
Oregon's wildlife treasures. He lived with, studied and wrote a superb
book on our elusive and fun-filled, Northern River Otter, Lontra
canadensis; and for years, was the guts and feathers of the Outdoor
Writers Association of America. As such, he was a prodigious writer for
several outdoor magazines that spanned a time warp from the mid-50s
into this century. Moreover, from the early '90s to when he left us, he
did it with one finger, the result of a terrible stroke in 1991.(Go to
www.owaa.org/legends/legendEdPark.htm, and read the delightful
interview Ed gave not too long ago.)

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