Author: Louie Opatz

When Demetri Martin gets recognized on the street, it must be hard for him to divine what exactly he’s getting recognized for. His lead role in Ang Lee’s 2009 film, Taking Woodstock? His time as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? One of his stand-up specials on the same channel? Or perhaps it’s for his cameo as a keytar-slinging replacement for Bret and Jemaine on Flight of the Conchords.

Artists from myriad genres and time periods have gotten considerable mileage out of Hans Christian Andersen’s 1845 fairy tale The Red Shoes. There’s the 1993 pop album from Kate Bush, the 2005 Korean horror film and, most notably, the 1948 British film of the same name, written, directed and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which is playing this weekend at 5th Avenue Cinema.

When a journalist, blogger or columnist refers to “U.S. military presence,” they are most likely referring to acknowledged combat zones like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, or to the less substantiated, off-the-grid chicanery we’re engaged in in places like Pakistan, Yemen, Iran and Somalia.

They are generally not talking about the thousand-odd military bases scattered around the globe in places like Italy, South Korea, Spain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Singapore, Kyrgyzstan, Greenland and Japan. The United States’ military presence in Japan, in particular, is overwhelming: The Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force maintain roughly 90 military bases across mainland Japan and Okinawa, which house roughly 40,000 U.S. troops, according to 2010 estimates.

The “ordinary man rises to the occasion” trope is a trope for a reason: Though we are all quite ordinary (whether we’ll admit it or not), most of us still secretly hope that somewhere deep down we can be extraordinary when it counts. Whether the last-second gunshot is on the line or a small town has forgotten how to dance, Hollywood loves to give a down-on-his-luck character a chance to prove his mettle.

Public speaking has always come naturally to Elena Rose.

“My first public political speech was when I was 15 in my hometown,” said Rose, a poet, writer, activist and seminary student. “I was pushed to the front of a pro-choice rally and a speech just came out. I had no idea what I was doing: Words just started coming out, and then all of a sudden people were crying and hugging me.”

I should probably get this out of the way: Until this weekend, I had never seen a John Waters film. This, apparently, is a very big deal. In my defense, Waters’ oeuvre can be daunting for the uninitiated. His career has spanned 40 years and engenders the kind of cultish devotion that tends to alienate us neophytes. Cult classics are decidedly less appealing when you’re not in the cult.

Hundreds gathered Tuesday, Nov. 22, in the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom to celebrate Japanese art, food, music, dance and good old-fashioned fellowship at Portland State’s annual Japan Night.

The event was planned and facilitated by the Japanese Student Society, whose key members kicked off the night by iterating the theme of the night and the society’s goals.

Portland State’s Confucius Institute will welcome professor Galal Walker when he delivers a lecture titled “Learning Cycles, Instructional Cycles and the Confucian Pleasure” Wednesday, Nov. 23.

Walker, a professor of Chinese Linguistics and the director of East Asian languages at Ohio State University, has spent his career arguing for the importance of culture in foreign language-learning curricula.