Arts & Culture
While the Chinese New Year may be drawing to a close, the celebrations aren’t over quite yet. The Confucius Institute at Portland State has one more trick up its sleeve. Rounding out a month’s worth of parties, cooking demonstrations and galas, the “Guzheng Lecture and Recital” will be the last event held by the Confucius Institute in celebration of the Chinese New Year.
As Cheryl Strayed stood on the Smith Memorial Student Union ballroom stage last Monday night, she recounted a story about how a copy of her best-selling memoir, Wild, was recovered by a hotel staff member who had never read a book in English; the woman had introduced herself to Strayed on her book tour.
It’s that time to start stressing about the end of the term, and for students who are heading into three weeks of projects, prep and performance evaluation, the only savior is the study break. Instead of spending your free hours binging on House of Cards or Dexter reruns, consider leaving an afternoon open for a different kind of light entertainment.
The Oregon Jewish Museum is bringing together collections of work focusing on both the past and the present, the political and the painterly. Beginning this week, the museum will open a pair of exhibitions, each featuring Jewish-themed work. A series of World War II-era photographs titled “Pictures of Resistance: The Wartime Photographs of Jewish Partisan Faye Schulman” will be shown, along with the mixed media work of local artist Sidonie Caron.
Uttarakhand is known by many as the “land of the gods” and is home to three of India’s biggest radio stations: Kumaon Vani, Heval Vani and Mandakini Ki Awaz. When community radio was established in India in 1995, it was seen as a way to promote freedom of expression and create social change, but because local communities faced issues of government monopoly, underprivileged populations felt their voices were not getting a fair chance to be heard.
This Wednesday, the Portland State art department is having something of a rebirth. Wednesday’s exhibition, titled “Say My Name, Say My Name,” will feature an array of events, including artist open studios and a bingo match.
There’s a point in Isabel Coixet’s 2005 film The Secret Life of Words when a character asserts that everything is essentially an accident. It’s a fascinating statement from a story that features suicide, genocide and the act of voluntarily detaching from the world.
“This is the 52nd year of one of the oldest and most prestigious things a choir can be accepted to sing at, and we had never applied before this year,” said Ethan Sperry, music department professor and director of choral activities, about the annual Seghizzi International Choral Competition.
Trolls, YouTube and Twitter bring Internet humor for your entertainment. Skootch, an improv group featuring members of the Brody Theater, will perform a show this evening focusing on Internet culture and its nuances.
I woke up on an apartment floor in Chinatown at 8:30 a.m. and did not feel well. I had intended to take it easy the night before, to down some Sleepy Time tea (with extra honey), read some self-serious essay on an ecological disaster or the education gap and hit the hay. The moment of truth came after the Trail Blazers’ ignominious loss to the Lakers (kuck Fobe), when I knew that I should leave the bar and head home for my date with my magazine and teapot.
Under the guise of invention, metal has quietly stagnated. When a metal band wants to take a leap of faith outside the bubble of its genre, it needs a fancy new genre label in order to legitimize it.