Embrace Your Inner Tourist: It’s safe to go outside again!

Posted inOutside

Embrace Your Inner Tourist: It’s safe to go outside again!

Pam Stevenson

And we all glide on. Soaring, etc.

OK, so we are all glad that the tourists have gone home. But maybe, secretly, we have an inner tourist that actually enjoyed riding the Space Mountain Roller Coaster at Disney World, bungy jumping in Queenstown and partaking in the wine and cheese safari in Napa Valley. Rather than wait 'til the relatives come to visit, now is the perfect time to come out of the closet and be a tourist in your own backyard.

GET ABOVE IT ALL

Last week, the friendly folks at Sunriver Soaring invited me to go on one of their glider flights. I'd never been in a glider before and, to be honest, I don't do particularly well on roller coasters and such, so I did sneak a Dramamine before my flight. I met the crew, including pilot Dale Masters, at the Sunriver Airport. It instilled confidence to meet Dale. He just looks like the seasoned pilot that he is and, with 30 years of successful soaring under his belt, he is the author of Soaring: Beyond the Basics. Brian Lansburgh, who has owned Sunriver Soaring for about a year and a half, supported his family for years as a comic pilot. That sounded like an oxymoron to me, but Dale explained, "He would fly like he didn't know what he was doing (which actually requires tremendous skill) and cap off the performance by landing and hopping out of the cockpit in a clown costume."

Posted inCulture

Shadow World: Traitor trades on Bourne action with ideas

Intern

Separate ways, worlds apart. Traitor works well on two very important levels: one, as just good old fashioned thriller with a wide variety of settings - London, Marseilles, Yemen, Toronto, and of course Washington DC - and two, it reminds us in not-so-subtle ways that the people who brought us 9/11 haven't gone away.

But the issue here is confused morality. How do you reconcile a seemingly good man doing heinous things?

Guy Pearce (LA Confidential) and Don Cheadle (Crash) head this international terrorism story, with one my of my favorite actors, Jeff Daniels (The Squid and The Whale) in a small but critical role.

Cheadle plays Samir Horn, an American-educated Muslim, who comes to terrorism early in his life after witnessing the car bombing of a family member. Reminiscent of all those "why is this good guy doing bad stuff" political thrillers, we start trying to wrestle with that question early on in the film as we find Horn in the company of some very unsavory characters.

Horn shows up on the radar of FBI agent Roy Clayton (Pearce). It is their relationship, the nuances of good and evil in the world, where loyalties really lie, and the complications of the "truth" which make this one of the more fascinating and believable international thrillers I have seen in recent years.

Posted inCulture

To Laugh, or Not to Laugh: Hamlet 2 squanders its weight in gold

Intern

To laugh or not to laugh. Hamlet 2 is a mixed bag of treats, missed opportunities, inspired comic genius, dull plodding and failed timing. In short, some parts are good, while others…not so much.

The film starts off with a collage of the "work" of actor Dana Marchz (Steve Coogan) including infomercials and roles in Xena, showing real humorous potential. Cut to the present where he is a depressed but optimistic dweeb acting teacher in Tucson. He is on the verge of losing the drama department due to the lack of talent in his plays (stage versions of movies like Erin Brockovich) plus fiscal cutbacks and a really mad, conservative principal (the always underrated Marshall Bell) who hates his guts. He then inadvertently adopts a bunch of inner-city kids into his class and comes up with the idea to do a sequel to Hamlet. Since everyone dies in the first one, as we all know, Marchz (his name is constantly mispronounced) solves that problem with a time machine, Jesus and a lot of gay references.

Steve Coogan is brilliant in the lead role, but perhaps too brilliant - he is given way too much leeway to over act. At first it works, but then it becomes tedious and overkill. Coogan's character drains you of any sympathy and after a while you just want to punch him in the face. As Marchz's wife Brie, Katherine Keener does her smartest and bitchiest person in the room shtick (nothing new there), and drinks a margarita that's the size of a Herculean goblet. Then there's Elizabeth Shue, playing herself, and has given up on acting and become a nurse. This is, thankfully, underplayed.

Posted inFood & Drink

Bang for Your Buck: Pastini Pastaria brings a winning Portland formula to Bend

Intern

Taking a bite out of high priced dining at pastini.Pastini Pastaria, another addition to the burgeoning Old Mill eatery scene, has been anxiously anticipated by all those Bendites familiar with the six Portland area locations. The restaurant’s claim to fame is 36 different pasta dishes at affordable prices. With entrees priced from $5.75, Pastini will be a welcome addition to what many think is a high-priced dining culture.

Before opening to the public, Pastini threw a fundraiser and introduction party to benefit the High Desert Museum. Guests were invited to pay a small fee for a six-month membership to the museum and were treated to an open bar and a meal comprising sample portions of dishes. This was a smart move on the part the management-before trying to turn a buck, they ponied up to provide a venue for a great cause. Although the restaurant is part of a Portland-based chain, it’s already giving back and becoming an active member of the community.

Pasta reigns supreme on the menu with the dishes separated into chicken, meat, vegetable and special pastas. To start the sample meal, we were served the Parmigiana Bread ($3.95), a baguette grilled with Parmesan cheese accompanied by marinara dipping sauce. It was simple and will be a big hit with the kids.

Posted inFood & Drink

Bang for Your Buck: Pastini Pastaria brings a winning Portland formula to Bend

Intern

Taking a bite out of high priced dining at pastini.Pastini Pastaria, another addition to the burgeoning Old Mill eatery scene, has been anxiously anticipated by all those Bendites familiar with the six Portland area locations. The restaurant's claim to fame is 36 different pasta dishes at affordable prices. With entrees priced from $5.75, Pastini will be a welcome addition to what many think is a high-priced dining culture.

Before opening to the public, Pastini threw a fundraiser and introduction party to benefit the High Desert Museum. Guests were invited to pay a small fee for a six-month membership to the museum and were treated to an open bar and a meal comprising sample portions of dishes. This was a smart move on the part the management-before trying to turn a buck, they ponied up to provide a venue for a great cause. Although the restaurant is part of a Portland-based chain, it's already giving back and becoming an active member of the community.

Pasta reigns supreme on the menu with the dishes separated into chicken, meat, vegetable and special pastas. To start the sample meal, we were served the Parmigiana Bread ($3.95), a baguette grilled with Parmesan cheese accompanied by marinara dipping sauce. It was simple and will be a big hit with the kids.

Posted inMusic

Grand (Inter)National: John Butler talks with us about Australia, politics and going dread-less

Intern

Get a good look at those dreads, ’cause you ain’t gonna see ’em again.The Source caught up with Aussie sensation John Butler over the phone last week before he and his band played in Flagstaff, Ariz. Their latest release, Grand National, has gone multi-platinum and enjoyed worldwide success. And it all started in 1998 with Butler busking on the streets of Fremantle, a small port city just south of Perth, on the West Coast of Australia. Which is where we began our line of questioning…

The Source Weekly: What's it like being so huge in Australia and then coming to the US as a lesser known act? Is it strange or do you like being somewhat anonymous?

John Butler: There's a big difference between mainstream popularity and underground popularity, which is what I guess we kind of have over here now after seven or eight years of [touring] America. We kind of just build it up from the ground up [so] by the time you're kind of getting to where your status is in the well-known region, it's solid and it just stays for a long time. That's kind of what's happened in Australia, every step of the way it's grown slowly, it's never been like a huge splash and so by the time we were big, the roots were very deep, it wouldn't really matter what storm came by, what we built wouldn't be knocked over.

Is it nice to go around and not worry about people coming up to you all the time though?

Posted inMusic

Year Around Folk: In its 13th year, Sisters Folk Festival has roots in music and its hometown

Mike Bookey

Mr. Red on Blonde himself, Tim O’Brien finally makes his way to the Sisters Folk Fest this weekend.It's late in the afternoon on a late August Thursday afternoon and that means Brad Tisdel is in his office and working late. It's only eight days before his labor of love, his raison d'etre (for the French speaking, or perhaps the hyperbolic), the Sisters Folk Festival takes flight. There's plenty of "i"s left to dot and "t"s to be crossed before the 13th installment of the roots music celebration, but Tisdel, the local singer-songwriter as well as the festival's artistic director, still makes time to talk about his hometown's cultural engine.

"The idea is to take a three-day music festival and make it have a year-around presence that's educational and also entertaining for the community," Tisdel says of the Sisters Folk Festival's standing in Central Oregon.

For several years now, the festival's presence has been felt on every page of the calendar whether it be through the Americana Project, Tisdel's in-school music education program, or perhaps the winter concert series, which this past year brought another solid lineup of national touring acts to Sisters. And as if the reach of the Sisters Folk Festival influence isn't expansive enough, Tisdel also recently launched Musical Memories, an inarguably innovative program that brings local musicians into senior communities to play tunes from yesteryear.

If you add in the Americana Song Academy, a songwriter’s summer camp of sorts that precedes the festival, it might be easy for some to forget that there are still three days at the beginning of September where the Sisters Folk Festival itself still exists. Starting on Friday and extending through Sunday while overtaking much of Central Oregon's favorite cowboy town, Sisters Folk is boasting a lineup this year that's full of national performers and as strong as any past gathering.

Posted inCulture

Our Picks for the week of 9/5-9/11

Mike Bookey

Person People

friday 5

Person People was originally slated for a Show Us Your Spokes benefit date at Parrilla and more than a few people were bummed to see their name pulled from that bill. BUT, BUT, BUT wouldn't ya know it, Bend's high-profile, high member count hip-hop super group simply moved their appearance back a week to coincide with a fundraiser for the Division Street Skatepark, which you might have read about in the Source a couple weeks ago. So, go get yourself some Person People, because these guys don't play all that often, but when they do, they bring the friggin' heat. 7pm. Parrilla Grill, 635 NW 14th St.

Sisters Folk Festival

friday-sunday 5-7

In its 13th year, the Sisters Folk Fest is as lively as ever and again taking over the quaint cowboy confines of little ol' Sisters with folk music of all shapes and sizes. Turn the page and learn more about this stalwart of Central Oregon's musical summer. Visit sistersfolkfestival.org for tickets, lineup and more valuable information.

Posted inNews

Bucks & Beer: Hops are more expensive, thus so is beer, but you’re still drinking

Mike Bookey

So much fuss over a little leaf. Times are getting tight, at least that's what we keep hearing, especially in this part of the country. People are driving less in an attempt to spend less of their hard-earned cash on gas, they're eating out less as food costs increase, but here in Central Oregon, where we have a brewery for about every 15,000 people, it appears that people are still drinking.

We might be cutting down on our road trips, but we'll be damned if we stop drinking our locally made beer, or so say our local brew smiths. If there were ever a sign that there is confidence in the local beer industry, it is Three Creeks Brewing Co., the new craft brewery that Wade Underwood recently opened in Sisters. Underwood previously lived in Phoenix while operating an Internet-based company that he subsequently sold before settling in Sisters with the intention of opening the city's only craft brew pub.

"We're opening at an interesting time, that's for sure," says a laughing Underwood, a University of Oregon grad whose interest in brewing stems back several years to the early days of McMenamins.

"If you look at all the business models, it would tell you not to build this," Underwood says, citing models that suggest that a community needs at least 150,000 people to support a craft brewery. But he says the Northwest is an exception, and furthermore, Central Oregon is an even more substantial exception, supporting six brewing establishments before Underwood opened the seventh.

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