The latest creation from 10 Barrel Brewing Co., a beer called 16 barrels, is not actually a new beer. In fact, it is over one year old. Intended to be a one-off, a version of this beer was made last year for a St. Valentine’s Day dinner. But the maestros at 10 Barrel loved it […]
Section Feature
Don’t Just Stand There, Bus a Move!
In recent months, Bend city councilor and Mayor pro tem Jodie Barram has repeatedly faced the same questions. No, not Mirror Pond. And no, not the city’s surface water improvement project. Nope, not the sewer system overhaul. Give up? The queries Barram has fielded have less to do with her capacity as a city councilor […]
Fat Bikes vs. Nordic Skis
Last January, David Marchi loaded up his aluminum Fatback-brand fat bike and headed to Virginia Meissner Sno-Park with his three-year-old son. It was a sunny, but cold day and the snow was bulletproof. With a ski trailer attached to his snow-ready mountain bike, Marchi was hoping for some wintry father-son bonding time. Marchi, the mustachioed […]
Is “Drone” a Dirty Word?
In 1959, a year before Bono was born, U-2 was the name for a classified, unmanned plane that flew past the Iron Curtain and across the restricted airspace in the Soviet Union. Concerned about sending pilots into hostile air space, the US Air Force launched a program—code name “Red Wagon”—to send “unmanned aerial vehicle”—or, what […]
1001 Reasons to Dance
Don’t even try to pronounce it. “Scheherazade,” has almost as many consonants as core dancers (24 to be exact—performers that is). And the ballet retelling of the prologue of 1001 Arabian Nights is equally elaborate with a score by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, a haram of some fourteen rhinestone-adorned dancers, a golden slave and a murderous vengeful […]
Borderlands Performance
Literary readings haven’t been traditionally funny. Thought of less as light entertainment, and more as “high culture,” authors have a stigma of stuffiness to contend with. Like opera or the ballet, literary presentations aren’t expected laugh-heavy—after all, learning isn’t fun—they’re meant to expand minds, especially presentations from a highly respected, culturally aware, and decorated author […]
No Float Summer?
Lazily floating down the Deschutes, past the Old Mill and, after a short portage, into Drake Park near downtown Bend, has for years been a Central Oregon summertime ritual. But this year that casual cool down may be interrupted. City councilor Victor Chudowsky worries that the leaking Newport Avenue dam will mean a shallower river […]
East Side Rising
It is as cliché as a John Hughes film that every town has its two sides—the right and wrong side of the tracks, the greasers and the socios, the post code envy. But with more advanced city planning and increasing city densities, it is just as likely in the 21st century that gentrification… …and economic […]
Go East, Young Bendite
Snow scarcity: Global warming or just a weather trend? Either way, the severe lack of snow—we’re inching further toward record lows—has shut down traditional winter. But, if Mother Nature won’t give us white stuff, she’s kindly offering the next best thing—warm days, clear skies and cold nights. The desert trails have rarely been more inviting. […]
Welcome Back Fellini
The Great Beauty takes a while to take on a structure—and, with true Fellini dreaminess, rarely holds onto a cohesive storyline. The film opens with a seemingly unrelated scene—a lyrical and sun-dappled scene as Japanese tourists explore one of Rome’s hillside chapels, before one man drops dead from a heart attack—and then jumps to a […]

