Is there anything more American than baseball? The smell of the grass, the smack of a worn leather glove, the crack of a wooden bat, the rolling of a cold beer down your throat. Willy Tea Taylor is a poet and songwriter who, better than just about anyone, captures baseball, heartache, death and rodeo, wrapping […]
Section Feature
Posted inCulture
Oregon’s Very Own John Grisham
An interview with Phillip Margolin
Author Phillip Margolin traded the thrills of the courtroom as an Oregon trial attorney for a career penning legal thrillers, and has nearly 20 bestselling books to show for it. His most recent novel, a historical drama titled Worthy Brown’s Daughter, is a heartbreaking story of slavery and murder set in nineteenth-century Oregon. Margolin will […]
Posted inMusic
Tales from the Road
Austin country rock band the Wheeler Brothers are all about adventures
“I can whistle in five languages. I’m smarter than a circus dog and I’m on Facebook,” claimed the crusty male voice in a message left for Austin country rock band the Wheeler Brothers. Oh, the stranger also called them morons. Crazy stalker? Not necessarily. The Wheeler Brothers actually invited fans and strangers—like this man—to call […]
Posted inCulture
21st Century Poetry
Bend hosts Oregon Poetry Association Conference
Logically, poetry should be the literary form of the 21st century. It’s short, concise, and for a shallow reading, only requires a snap second attention span. Sounds an awful lot like Twitter (a-hem, Millennials, you should love it). Yet despite its digestibility, the form is still clouded by a shadow of elitism and snobbery, dating […]
Posted inNews
Huffing and Puffing
Citizen group’s challenge to OSU-Cascades a bit too quick on the litigious trigger
Becky Johnson, vice president of Oregon State University-Cascades, says she wants to be a good neighbor. As the lead proponent for the university’s expansion to a full-service, four-year college, that sentiment has placed her on the frontline with neighbors. And, since last April, the university has convened a board of community members the school calls […]
Posted inSpecial Issues & Guides
Giving More Than They Take
Small changes for Bend Park & Recreation make a big difference
Last year, Oregon ranked sixth in the number of Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certified projects, registering 47 buildings statewide. One of Bend’s crown sustainable architecture jewels is the Bend Park & Recreation administration building, awarded a prestigious Gold LEED Certification upon completion in 2009. The building is fully loaded with radiant floor […]
Posted inOutside
Dirt Bikes Come of Age
But BMX racing remains humble
In the ’70s, riding dirt bikes was an informal sport, jumping Huffy bikes off mounds in backyards and tearing Schwinn Sting-Rays through hiking paths (certainly a precursor to mountain biking for thousands of kids). But even though the sport had formally arrived in America in 1969, when a group of teenagers in West LA started […]
Posted inCulture
Hicks With Issues
Joe’s boilerplate backwoods drama
Fifteen percent of the United States’ population lives in poverty. That’s a lot of poor people, living a lot of different kinds of lives. It’s weird, then, that when poor people turn up in movies and on television, their stories always seem to feature the same few elements: The South Bad teeth Weird sex stuff […]
Posted inCulture
Whimsy & Righteousness
Ernest & Celestine—now in English!
Ernest & Celestine originally screened in Oregon as part of the Portland International Film Festival (PIFF), and I remember thinking it was a shame. Not the film itself—which is an absolute delight—but the fact that it was screening in its original French with English subtitles. Fine for adults, but out of reach for kids who […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Straight From The Farm
A holistic attitude toward farming, maintaining land and eating
Bette Frasier is more than just the owner of the Well Traveled Fork, and more than just a tour guide to High Desert area farms. She is greeted with hugs and toothy smiles from farmers, and she knows the names of family members, their pets and what everyone’s been working on. “We’re several generations removed […]